Her breakthrough came in 2018 with the performance Milk & Dates† Now actress Soumaya Ahouaoui is a permanent ensemble member at Het Nationale Theater and she will soon be playing her first leading role in a major public film. Her greatest talent: mixing humor with depth.
According to director Johan Nijenhuis, it has become one of the best scenes from his new film. In front of Moroccan wedding had to play lead actor Soumaya Ahouaoui (35) that she could not cook at all. “I gave her one of those big, pink, fluffy, bald chickens. Instantly Soumaya began to fumble with that beast of her own accord, pretended not to know how to cut it, dropped it, held it back triumphantly.’ He laughs when he thinks about it. ‘Do you know what it is? She doesn’t shy away from the slapstick, while at the same time she approaches her text intelligently.’ Because during the first rehearsal he noticed that Ahouaoui knew exactly why which sentence was placed where and how best to perform it.
Varying in how you play something is fine with her, Nijenhuis noticed. “She’s got a lot of reach, and that’s important in a romantic comedy.” Moroccan wedding, co-written by Mina El Hannaoui and in cinemas from May, is about the ambitious Yasmine whose family above all hopes she will get married soon. Nijenhuis: ‘This script requires a lightning-fast switch from high peaks of infatuation to deep valleys of sadness. One minute you’re playing a happy family scene and the next you’re hopelessly sad. Soumaya plays in the Eredivisie with actors who can do that.’
Eric de Vroedt, artistic director of Het Nationale Theater in The Hague, also noticed this wide range when he first saw Ahouaoui play. That was at the dress rehearsal of Milk & Dates, a performance from 2018 by director Daria Bukvić about four Moroccan-Dutch women. Ahouaoui played catchy, he says, with a lot of flair and charisma. De Vroedt: ‘She had a lot of humor in her playing, but she also had depth. I think it’s important that characters have both tragedy and comedy in them. Soumaya is very good at finding those splits, turning something heavy into something light.’ Since 2019, Ahouaoui has therefore been part of the ensemble of Het Nationale Theater, where she performed in special roles in performances such as Spoonface and hebriana†
On March 26, the National Theater de Pleasure Trilogy premiered: three pieces by Judith Herzberg about a Jewish family and the consequences of the Second World War on the second and third generations. Ahouaoui has a role in each of the parts, but the most layered character is Xandra from part three. De Vroedt: ‘That is a woman who loses her parents at a young age and from whom people around her keep all kinds of secrets. She can’t stand that and she’s dealing with it in an adolescent way, even though she’s already 25. For example, she jumps on her sick neighbor’s bed to get his attention. Soumaya knows how to portray such scenes very wittily. At the same time, she also explains what is underneath Xandra, namely loneliness and depression.’
Own experiences
To prepare for this character, Ahouaoui drew on his own experiences. Xandra struggles with not knowing who her dead parents were, or what her grandparents endured during the war. Ahouaoui: ‘I didn’t get everything from what my grandparents and parents went through. My mother grew up in Morocco in a noble family, but chose to marry my father. She left her rich, protected life behind and emigrated to the Netherlands. Her parents died when she was young, and I think that was very difficult for her, but I didn’t get much of that. In Xandra I recognize that we inherit everything from the generations above us, and that we are the generation that now has to make something of our lives.’
Ahouaoui was born in Utrecht and still lives there. During her secondary school years she was already part of the theater group Dox. In 2012 she graduated from the Toneelschool Amsterdam and has since played with various companies, such as the Toneelmakerij and Toneelgroep Oostpool. Her breakthrough to the general public came in 2018 with Milk & Dates† The TV series was inspired by that performance Zina, on display at the NPO since last December. Ahouaoui plays the main character Amal, who tries to find her way in life with her four Moroccan-Dutch friends.
Michael Middelkoop, director of that series, describes her character as open, but also performance-driven. ‘She had always done her homework, was prepared to the point. Acting is more than learning the words, it’s understanding exactly why the character is angry or sad now.’ Nijenhuis also remembers her great dedication: ‘Sometimes you have a scene in one or two takes, but Soumaya was often the first to say: ‘Ah, shall we do it one more time, but this time with a tear?”
“I’ve learned that dedication is everything,” Ahouaoui explains her fanaticism. ‘You can have talent, but only if you put a lot of time into something and are disciplined, you can reap the benefits. Maybe I got that from my karate days.’ Ahouaoui once did that at top sport level, with sometimes eight training sessions a week. At the age of 17 she could call herself European champion.
perfectionist
But don’t think she’s just super serious now. Cheerful, that’s how all directors describe her. A barrel full of energy. “I wake up every day and think, okay! What are we going to do today? I have an insane urge to make and create art.’
Or her discipline and dedication can spill over into perfectionism? “Yeah, I’m definitely a perfectionist.” That sometimes caused some friction just before a performance. Daria Bukvić, director of Milk & Dates and producer of Zina, recalls with a laugh that Ahouaoui had a super tight routine before she showed up in the performance. “She was very fussy about where her things should be and no one was allowed to touch it. That sometimes caused surprise among the fellow players and sometimes also hilarious situations because things had been moved by accident.’
Ahouaoui smiles apologetically. †oh my god† Yes, especially with stage. Other people throw their stuff down carelessly, but I lay out my props or costumes very precisely and really can’t stand it if someone else touches them.’ Because playing in front of an audience is scary. ‘At least I’ll have the things I can check in order.’
She can also be a perfectionist in her game: ‘I am almost never completely satisfied. I feel like I could always have done more, that I gave too little to the character.’
Busy
Middelkoop saw during the filming of Zina Sometimes she put a lot of pressure on herself. ‘She could get mad at herself if things didn’t go well right away. Like, why am I tripping over that text now? But I think that’s actually really cool, if acting is top sport for someone. Soumaya is someone who realizes: this take is forever. We are here now to tell a story that has never been told or made in the Netherlands before. We can’t screw this up.’
Because a TV series about Moroccan-Dutch young women who try to find their own place in the world, also mainly written by these women, was there for Zina not yet. Also in Milk & Dates and Moroccan wedding these women tell their own stories. Stories about universal themes such as love, career and friendship, but with the unique experiences of a group that moves between two cultures. Interpreting those stories as well as possible is a great responsibility, Ahouaoui feels: ‘The aim is for bicultural people to recognize themselves in these stories, so I want to portray characters from that community as realistically as possible.’
This can be seen in something as simple as make-up, for example. Nijenhuis remembers how Ahouaoui spoke out about make-up in Moroccan wedding: ‘The make-up of a Moroccan bride is experienced as a lot by white Dutch people, we tended to tone it down a bit. But Soumaya said: ‘This is tradition at Moroccan weddings, you should not change that. If you adjust it to Dutch standards, you completely miss the point.”
Coincidentally, Ahouaoui interprets both in Zina as in Moroccan wedding a young Moroccan-Dutch woman who is about to get married. That is not an issue for herself (yet), she chuckles, but she does have one dream in that area. “I really like big, glamorous fairy tales, so it would be great to have such a huge wedding party myself one day.” She can already see it all: hundreds of guests, crowds, chaos, endless food, music. ‘Actually, such a Moroccan wedding, with all those exuberant rituals, is one big play. There is nothing that makes me happier than participating in it.’
‘The Leedvermaak trilogy’, premiere 26 March, hnt.nl. ‘Zina’ can be seen via NPOstart. ‘Moroccan Wedding’ can be seen in cinemas from May 19, 2022.