We sat down for an exclusive interview with Arif Silverman, the writer, performer, and director of SENTERCENTENNIAL, in which a conservative South Asian American undergoes a harrowing identity crisis while preparing for a barbecue celebrating America’s 250th Birthday.
SESTERCENTENNIAL will be performed 3rd July at the Bread and Roses Theatre – Tickets here
1. How does it feel to write and perform in second person?
I’m excited about it, especially since it wasn’t the original idea. I was writing in first person for a few weeks, until I realized I couldn’t justify why Hamza was talking to the audience. Who were they? What was their relationship to him? By writing in second person, the audience becomes Hamza, and the performer embodies Hamza’s thoughts. So now he’s sort of talking to himself. The hope is that implicating the audience in this way makes everything more active. I doubt they’ll always agree with what he says, but I’m also interested in the tension that generates. So much of the play is about reflecting – on personal as well as national identity – and I hope writing in second person will allow for the language to reflect as well.
2. What are the challenges and benefits of writing, performing, and directing the same show?
So many challenges! It’s always useful having another person serve as director – getting a trusted outside eye is invaluable. My schedule and budget constraints are the only reasons I haven’t hired one. Having to check your own impulses, making sure each beat is given its proper due, gets draining very quickly. But it also forces you to work efficiently. I find I am asking more specific questions to find a grounding set of circumstances for each moment, which should hopefully add greater detail to the work. There are benefits to learning lines that I wrote, though, as I already have a sense of what they are! I’ve been tinkering the script as I go – hearing the words out loud helps me understand which areas are clear and which aren’t.
3. What role did your range of collaborators play in SESTERCENTENNIAL’s development?
Everyone on this team met while we were students at Rose Bruford College. I am so grateful for the joyful, detailed work they bring to this process. My conversations with my fabulous assistant director Abrah Ophelia Katzman have ranged from creating more dynamic stage pictures to what and when to post on social media. My creative collaborators Neha Hemachandra and Kazeem Akinsanya directed my previous show The Godless War – they went in cold to see a run of this show, and have since offered to be additional eyes in future rehearsals. Lastly, I have worked with the wonderful lightning designer and board op Chiara Bowker on two previous shows – we talk shop, I give them some ideas, they suggest something fantastic, and then we talk theatre. An absolute A-Team.
4. How do you think the American setting and racial politics transfers over to a London audience, in terms of both differences and similarities?
I hope the American setting will feel especially pertinent considering the timing: SESTERCENTENNIAL premieres on July 3rd, 2026, and is set on July 4th, 2026 – America’s 250th Birthday. So in an extremely literal sense, this play is about what’s happening in America right now. I’ll be revising the script until opening lest any major events occur which Hamza would be reflecting on.
Regarding racial politics, the US and UK have shocking amounts of South Asian conservatives, even as these movements cultivate racist policy and racist violence. I am fascinated by the logical backflips these Desi conservatives undertake to believe themselves fully integrated into these movements. To this degree, Hamza feels a potent rage towards the colonial history of South Asia, but fails to recognize the political consequences of its afterlife.
5. Why choose a solo play to explore these divisions between friends?
I think that divisions between friends can get exacerbated by the stories we tell ourselves about our relationships. Much is often left unsaid as relationships change, and speaking for myself, that allows room for dark thoughts to emerge. I can begin spinning a dialogue that paints this person (or more often, myself) in a negative, cynical light. But I pray, and frankly suspect, that I am not alone in giving in to these thoughts on occasion. My hope is that audience members will feel validated by what Hamza chooses to worry about, as well as disturbed by how needlessly vicious his thoughts become. In this way, the story isn’t as much about the dynamic between friends as it is how shifting dynamics risk driving us into a very dark spiral.
6. Does Hamza’s anxiety reflect a wider trend at the moment? Where does that come from?
Hamza’s anxiety is greatly intensified by digital communication, which is certainly a prevailing element in many of our lives. A sizable chunk of the play’s interactions transpire on social media and through text. Strangely, I think the politics of what gets communicated where are well known. While it is easy to be gaslit into thinking that shifting a conversation from a group text to a private DM (or visa versa) doesn’t mean anything, these shifts are disarming, and can end conversations without real closure. Even someone like Hamza, who rarely uses social media, is harrowed by how his conversations shift from one digital terrain to another. I think this problem is exacerbated when one’s relationships are maintained exclusively, or even primarily through these platforms, which is worryingly common these days.