Layla and Majnun is a classic Middle Eastern love story about Qays and Layla, whose love is opposed by their families. Unable to be with Layla, Qays becomes known as “Majnun,” meaning “madman,” and withdraws into the wilderness, where his devotion turns him into a legendary symbol of passionate, impossible love.

In this drama, four Hui women from different generations reimagines this love story, using the legend to explore love, identity, tradition, responsibility, and how people are shaped by the stories others tell about them.

Scene 1, “Oh, Majnun,” follows a young Hui woman questioning her relationship with a Han man and whether love should outweigh family and tradition.

Scene 2, “Who Is Layla?” examines how labels can erase individual identity, especially for women and minorities.

Scene 3, “The Things We Carry,” presents a mother reflecting on responsibility, family, and the meaning of choosing to stay.

Scene 4, “What Remains,” explores how traditions change yet survive through memory and reinterpretation.

Scene 5, “The Same Story, Again,” returns to the first woman, who realizes that neither rebellion nor obedience alone defines freedom; she must decide what she chooses to carry.

SCENE 1 — “OH, MAJNUN”

Character 2 occupies her own section of the stage.
A chair. A small table. A mirror. A bag.

She is getting ready to leave the house.

She puts on one earring, studies herself in the mirror, hesitates, and takes it off.

CHARACTER 2

Oh, Majnun. Majnun, Majnun. Now I understand you.

Pause.

No. That is ridiculous. I absolutely do not understand you.

You ran into the wilderness. You spoke to animals. People called you mad.

I have dinner reservations at seven-thirty.

She puts the earring back on.

She opens the book and reads a line about separation making Majnun’s love burn more fiercely.

“ when separation came, our brightly glowed his ardent flames”

She looks at herself in the mirror.

CHARACTER 2

Isn’t it beautiful. Terrible, but beautiful

The kind of thing you read when you’re sixteen and think—

of course.

If everyone says no and you love harder, that must be love.

If they tell you to stop and you cannot, that must be love.

If it hurts enough—

She stops.

I used to think Majnun was excessive.

That was the word.

Qays loves a girl. Their families say no.

And instead of doing what a reasonable person is supposed to do—

grieve, recover, marry somebody else, become mildly nostalgic at forty—

he becomes Majnun.

She smiles.

What an inconvenient man.

yet, sometimes reasonable people could be just extremely irritating.

Because they are always right.

That is the worst part.

She begins placing things into her bag.

CHARACTER 2

Think about your future. Yes. . Marriage is not only about two people. Yes. Children. Religion. The life after the feeling. Yes. Yes. I know.

She stops.

And still— there he is.

Not Majnun.

Him.

Her voice becomes simpler.

He is Han.

I am Hui.

Pause.

Four words. It is almost embarrassing how much work four words can do.

He is Han. I am Hui.

There. Now everyone understands the problem without knowing anything about him. Or me.

She returns to the bag.

I’ve told a few friends.

Not my parents.

God, no.

And the questions arrive immediately. Would he convert? Would his family accept it? What would your parents say? What about children?

She looks outward.

Nobody asks: Does he make you laugh? He does. Especially when I am trying very hard to be angry with him.

A small smile.

And somehow that feels important to me.

More important than all those very reasonable questions.

The smile fades.

But that is the problem.

Because I understand the questions too.

She takes something from the bag, considers it, puts it back.

CHARACTER 2

I think people misunderstand what is frightening about being told that a love is impossible.

It isn’t simply hearing “no.”

“No” is easy to fight.

The frightening part is when you understand the reasons.

When some part of you thinks—

maybe they are right.

Pause.

My mother doesn’t know.

But sometimes I hear her anyway.

Not her words exactly.

More like—

a shape.

She looks around the room.

A whole life already arranged into a shape.

Who comes to dinner.

What we eat.

Which holidays matter.

What language is spoken around the table.

She picks up an ordinary object and returns it carefully to its usual place.

People say “tradition” and make it sound enormous.

Ancient.

Heavy.

But most of the time, it is something like this.

Knowing exactly where something belongs.

She looks at the object.

Knowing where you belong.

Pause.

Silence.

Elsewhere onstage, one of the other women briefly pauses in her activity.

Character 2 does not notice.

She turns back toward the book.

CHARACTER 2

So, Majnun.

That is why I came back to you.

Because you never seem to have this problem.

She sits.

You don’t negotiate with yourself.

You don’t wake up and make two columns.

Reasons to stay.

Reasons to leave.

You just—

love.

And when the world says no, you walk into the wilderness.

Pause.

That is terrifying.

But there is something almost clean about it.

No bargaining.

No wondering which voice in your head actually belongs to you.

She looks at herself in the mirror.

Sometimes I envy that.

And I could never do that

Not that my family might tell me who I am supposed to be. i can argue against that.

But what if I learned who I am supposed to be so well—that I cannot tell which voice is mine?

Silence.

She picks up her bag.

Then stops.

She looks again at the book.

CHARACTER 2

You know what is dangerous about you, Majnun?

You make everything clearer than it is.

The world says no. You suffer. The love grows stronger.

And suddenly the suffering itself begins to look like proof.

But is it?

Pause.

If everyone I love tells me that this feeling cannot fit inside the life I belong to—

and the feeling remains—

what am I supposed to trust?

The life?

Or the feeling?

Silence.

She almost leaves.

Then, instead, she returns to the mirror.

She removes one earring again.

She checks her bag, realizes she has forgotten something, and begins searching for it.

The ordinary tasks continue.

The question does not.

Elsewhere onstage, another woman’s repetitive movement slows.

SCENE 2 — “WHO IS LAYLA?”

Character 1

CHARACTER 1

More brightly?

She looks up for;the first time.

CHARACTER 1

No. Sorry. I don’t understand.

“When separation came,
more brightly glowed his ardent flame.”

That’s the evidence?

She takes out the earphone.

CHARACTER 1

You separate two people and suddenly the love becomes stronger—

and everybody goes: Wow.True love.

That sounds less like romance and more like basic combustion.

She returns to her phone.

CHARACTER 1

Majnun.

Layla and Majnun.

Everybody in my family knows about Layla and Majnun.

She scrolls.

CHARACTER 1

I mean, I knew the names.Kind of.

Basically ,two people, In love, families say no, boy goes crazy, very sad, very famous.

Done.

Wait, what

Majnun isn’t his name?

She reads.

CHARACTER 1

Oh, Qays.His name was Qays.

“Majnun.”

Mad. Possessed. Crazy.

So people call him crazy long enough and eventually—that becomes his name?1

That’s actually kind of horrible isn’t it. Imagine being remembered forever by the worst thing everybody called you.

She thinks.

Seriously.

Qays disappears. Majnun stays.

The person becomes the nickname.

And then the nickname becomes—

She searches for a word.

CHARACTER 1

—a legend.

Pause.

CHARACTER 1

Then where is Layla?

who is Layla?

She scrolls.

CHARACTER 1

Layla was—

“the beloved of Majnun.”

“Layla, whose beauty inspired—”

“Layla, the object of Qays’s passionate—”

Again. That’s cheating.

I ask who she is and you tell me who loved her.

Imagine doing that with anybody else.

Who is Emma?

“Oh, Daniel really likes her.”

Okay.Thank you. Extremely useful.

She tries again.

CHARACTER 1

What did she like?

Why Qays fall in love with her

Why she didn’t chase Majnun back?

Was she funny?

Did she talk too much?

Did she hate poetry?

She stops.

CHARACTER 1

Actually, that would be funny.

Imagine Layla hated poetry and Majnun is out there writing things like:

My soul burns beneath the moon—

and reading it aloud to anyone who would stop to here:How would Layla feel ?

Would she have the courage to say: Please stop.

She laughs.

CHARACTER 1

But really, why did he love her?

Pause.

There must have been something special Right?

Otherwise—

She stops.

Otherwise it could have been anyone.

Layla could have been—any girl.

She sits back.

No, That sounds terrible.

She looks again at the phone.

CHARACTER 1

Because if she could be anyone—then what exactly is he loving?

Her?

Or—

She struggles to formulate it.

—being Majnun?

Pause.

CHARACTER 1

The whole thing. The wilderness. The poems.

Everyone saying no. Everyone thinking he’s insane. Him loving harder because everyone says he shouldn’t.

She remembers Character 2’s phrase.

CHARACTER 1

“More brightly.”

Beat.

CHARACTER 1

What if that's the part he likes? what if being unable to have Layla is what makes Layla—Layla?

She looks up.

CHARACTER 1

If she actually came over and said:

Okay, Qays. Here I am. Let’s get married. Come meet my parents and wqe will figure out where we’re living.

Also, you snore. You definitely need to stop that with me

Pause.

CHARACTER 2

Does Majnun survive that?

Could he ever survive that ?

She laughs, but the question begins to bother her.

CHARACTER 1

Because Majnun needs—

She gestures toward an imaginary distance.

—that.

Layla over there.

Majnun over here.

The whole world between them.

Pause.

CHARACTER 1

Maybe if Layla gets too close, she becomes a person, not the ideal figure imagined by Majnun.

oh, that’s the problem.1

The story needs Majnun to become more and more of something.

More mad.More devoted.More pure.

More of the figure that people now look up to

Beat.

CHARACTER 1

And Layla?What does she become more of?

Beloved.

The Beloved.

Pause.

Auh, I hate that.

The way somebody can become a word.

She notices something written on the paper in front of her.

CHARACTER 1

We had this thing at school last week.

Not a big thing, just—someone asked me:

“Wait. You're Hui?”

CHARACTER 1

Like I had been keeping a secret.

I said yes.

And then—

you know that moment when somebody asks you something and suddenly three other people are listening?

She looks outward.

CHARACTER 1

“Are you Muslim?”

“Do you eat pork?”

“Why don’t you wear—”

Then somebody asked what Hui people believe.

And I—

I didn’t know what to say.

She looks genuinely embarrassed.

CHARACTER 1

Not because I was offended.

I just—didn't know.

I mean, obviously I know things.

Family Food .Names...

Things my grandparents say, things you're supposed to do, things we don't really do anymore.

Pause.

CHARACTER 1

But “What do Hui people believe?”

That sounds like a question with a paragraph answer.

She looks at her phone.

CHARACTER 1

So I looked it up.

I googled myself....

She laughs once.

And there it all was, History, Religion, Food, Marriage customs, Festivals....

Pause.

CHARACTER 1

Very organized.

e even More organized than me.

Pause.

CHARACTER 1

Then the next day one of them said—“Oh, ask her. She’s Hui.”

Silence.

CHARACTER 1

Her.

Me.

Suddenly I'm evidence. Which is unfair because I am terrible evidence.

I don't pray.

I barely know how—

She stops.

And before they asked, I never thought:

I just—was.

Pause.

CHARACTER 1

And now I notice it. Because they noticed it?

She looks toward the place where Character 2 had been speaking.

Not directly at her.*

CHARACTER 1

Is that how it happens?

Someone says a word enough—and then you start hearing yourself through it?

Silence.

CHARACTER 1

Qays.

Majnun.

CHARACTER 1

Girl.

Hui.

Beloved.

CHARACTER 1

Maybe names are useful because otherwise we'd have to describe everybody from the beginning every time.

She gestures toward herself.

CHARACTER 1

“Seventeen-year-old person who likes mango ice cream, hates running, has three unfinished assignments, technically knows how to make dumplings but they always break—”

Pause.

CHARACTER 1

And yet—

what happens to all the other things when one name gets too loud?

She returns to Layla.

CHARACTER 1

Majnun gets a whole transformation.

Everybody watches it happen.

Writes poems about it.

Makes paintings of it.

Turns it into love.

Turns it into religion.

Turns it into whatever they need.

Pause.

CHARACTER 1

And Layla is still the beloved.

CHARACTER 1

No. That is just not right.

I want to know what happened to her.

Not what happened to Majnun because of her.

Her.

Silence.

CHARACTER 1

He gets to go into the wilderness.

Then what does she get to do?

Stay?

In Character 3’s space, a piece of clothing is being folded.

The hands slow.

CHARACTER 1

Everybody asks what loving Layla did to Majnun.

Character 1 looks again at the phone, then lowers it.

CHARACTER 1

What did being Layla do to Layla?

Silence.

Character 1 returns to her homework. She writes for several seconds, then stops.

She crosses out something she has written.

In Character 3’s space, the folding continues.

Transition into Scene 3.

SCENE 3 — “THE THINGS WE CARRY”

CHARACTER 3

CHARACTER 3

Bismillah.

She begins.

For a while, there is only the sound of water.

CHARACTER 3

A house has a memory, my mother told me this.

At that time, I thought she was talking about the house. The walls, the furniture, the things inside it.

But later I understood that she was talking about the people.

A house remembers who wakes up early. Who notices what is missing. Who knows when someone is unhappy before they say anything.

She folds the cloth.

It remembers who takes care of things.

CHARACTER 3

People think responsibility means losing something.

Time, freedom, choices, you name it.

Maybe it does, but sometimes, responsibility is how you become part of something.

She looks toward the prayer mat.

CHARACTER 3

When I pray, I do not only pray for myself.

I pray for my parents. My husband. My daughter. People who came before me. People who will come after me.

Maybe that is why I never understood people who wanted to cut themselves away completely.

She hangs the washed cloth.

CHARACTER 3

Majnun did that. He loved Layla so much that he left everything else behind.

His family. His place among people and the ordinary life.

And everyone remembers that, everyone remembers the person who leaves.

silence

CHARACTER 3

When I was young, I thought Majnun was the brave one.

Because he refused to change and nobody could make him stop or tell him who to become.

She looks down at the clothes in her hands.

CHARACTER 3

But I always wondered—

what about the person who stays?

She does not stop working.

CHARACTER 3

Not because she is weak.

Not because she does not have feelings.

Because there are things waiting for her.

Someone has to remember, someone has to prepare,someone has to carry what others forget.

Pause.

CHARACTER 3

I do not think that is a small thing at all.

She stands and begins sweeping.

The movement changes. Washing was intimate and personal; sweeping is broader, maintaining the shared space.

CHARACTER 3

My daughter does not understand this yet.

So I understand , how she repeatedly says“I want to choose my own life.”

She sweeps.

I know she means something important. I know.

But sometimes I want to ask her—choose what?

Not that she should not choose, but nobody chooses alone.

Every choice touches something else. A family, a parent, a future,She sweeps a little dust into a pile.

She gathers the dust.

Then she notices that one corner remains dirty.

She returns to clean it.

CHARACTER 3

My daughter thinks I want her to have my life.

Pause.That is not true.

She sweeps.

CHARACTER 3

I do not want her to become me.

But I want her to understand why I became this person.

She places the broom aside.

CHARACTER 3

When I was married, nobody asked me:

“What kind of person do you want to become?”

There were other questions. Can you care for a family? Can you be patient? Can you respect people? Can you carry responsibility?

CHARACTER 3

Those questions.

She looks at her hands.

They made me who I am.

Silence.

CHARACTER 3

And yet sometimes I wonder—

She stops. She folds a piece of clothing.

If someone is taught the same answer their whole life...

how do they know whether they chose it?

I chose my family, yes I did and I love them.

But, if another person chooses differently...

does that mean they do not understand responsibility?

Silence.

She looks toward Character 2’s space.

Not directly at her.

CHARACTER 3

Majnun left.

People called him devoted.People called him pure.People remembered him forever.

Layla stayed and what name did they give her?

She takes the folded clothes and places them away.

CHARACTER 3

I used to think freedom meant leaving.

Like Majnun, going somewhere nobody could reach you and living in the wild for the rest of the life

She looks around her small, ordered space.

CHARACTER 3

But it might also mean knowing why you stay.

Maybe—

She looks toward her daughter's unseen space.

—someone else has to answer that question for herself, not from me.

Long silence.

She picks up the prayer mat and carefully folds it.

The action is not an ending. It is a continuation.

CHARACTER 3

Tomorrow morning, after I wake up at 6, made the breakfast and reminded my daughter to take her things.

Maybe tomorrow—

before I tell her what she should carry...

I will ask what she wants to carry.

She turns off the light in her space.

Transition into Scene 4.

SCENE 4 — “WHAT REMAINS”

CHARACTER 4

CHARACTER 4

When I was young, I thought old things stayed old.

It sounds strange, but when you are young, you think the world you are born into has always existed. The street has always been there. The houses have always been there. The people have always called things by the same names.

Then one day you wake up. And something has been changed

Pause.

CHARACTER 4

The mosque near our house was like that.

When I was a child, I thought it would always be there. The sound of people coming and going. The old men sitting outside. The women greeting each other after prayer. Children running where they were not supposed to run.

Small smile.

CHARACTER 4

Then the road renewed . The buildings modernized. The city became bigger.

And one day—the mosque was no longer there.

Silence.

They did not tear it down. People kept telling me that,. "It is still there. You can still pray there."

And it is still there. Smaller. Cleaner. Brighter lights. Glass doors where the wooden gate used to be. And a sign beside the door: Prayer Hall

CHARACTER 4

I still remember how angry I was when first knowing it. I thought: How can you take something that held so many people's memories and turn it into something brand new ?How can people walk past the place where their grandparents prayed and not feel anything?

She pauses.

CHARACTER 4

Then I became older.

And I realized,

everything disappears.

Not that people don’t care, but because time moves.

She returns to her sewing.

CHARACTER 4

Even traditions.

People speak about tradition as though it is a stone. Something placed somewhere, inherited generation after generation. Something you either protect or destroy.

She shakes her head slightly.

CHARACTER 4

It is not a stone. It is more like cloth.

She holds the fabric.

If nobody touches it, it becomes old.

If nobody repairs it, it tears.

If you repair it too much—

—it becomes something new.

Silence.

CHARACTER 4

And that is why I think about Layla and Majnun differently now.

She places the needle down.

When I was young, I loved Majnun, same as everyone else. I admired that mad lover, that person who loved so much that the whole world became meaningless without Layla.

Pause.

CHARACTER 4

And I thought that was the story.

But, why do we remember Majnun?

Not Qays.

Majnun.

A person became a word.

CHARACTER 4

At first, I thought that was a tragedy. Qays disappeared. His own name disappeared. Everyone only remembered the role he played.

CHARACTER 4

But then I thought about the mosque.

She looks toward the old object.

CHARACTER 4

Did the mosque disappear because the building disappeared? Or does something remain because people continue carrying its meaning?

Maybe Qays did not disappear completely. Maybe every person who tells the story creates him again.

After all, every generation needs its own Majnun.

For some, he is the person who refuses to give up love.

For some, he is the person who abandons everything and forgets responsibility.

For some, he is the question: Who was the person before everyone gave him a name?

Pause.

CHARACTER 4

But Layla, she is different

She looks at the cloth in her hands.

CHARACTER 4

Majnun became a symbol.

People wanted him to represent something. Love, Faith, Devotion, amirable Madness

But Layla remained -- Layla.

A woman is often remembered through the meaning others find in her.A daughter. A wife. A mother or the beloved.

That is why we now ask: Who was Layla?

Because after so many years, we still do not know.

She folds the old cloth.

CHARACTER 4

But not knowing does not mean she was empty.

Every person leaves something unfinished. Every tradition, every story and every life. The mistake is thinking that preserving something means keeping it exactly the same.

Pause.

CHARACTER 4

Nothing survives that way.

She places the repaired cloth down.

CHARACTER 4

The mosque is gone.

But I still remember the soothing sound of the prayers

Pause.

CHARACTER 4

My grandchildren do not know that sound.

They know other sounds.

Other places.

Other ways of believing.

CHARACTER 4

That is also what happened to Layla and Majnun.

Pause.

CHARACTER 4

They were once two people.

Then they became a story.

Then the story became many stories.

She looks toward the audience.

And now four women are sitting here, trying to understand what they became.

Silence.

CHARACTER 4

Perhaps that is how traditions survive.

Not by remaining untouched.

But by finding someone willing to ask new questions.

She returns to repairing.

The action continues.

Transition into Scene 5.

SCENE 5 — “THE SAME STORY, AGAIN”

CHARACTER 2

CHARACTER 2

Oh, Majnun.

Majnun, Majnun.

I thought I understood you.

She looks at the earring.

Then she puts it on.

CHARACTER 2

“When separation came—

more brightly glowed his ardent flame.”

More brightly.

Before, I heard courage.

Now I hear something else

She removes the earring.

CHARACTER 2

A person can become very beautiful inside a story.

Majnun. The mad lover. The person who loved so much that nothing else mattered.

She opens the bag.

Inside are the same objects from Scene 1.

She takes them out slowly.

CHARACTER 2

I used to think the people around him were the ones who created the prison.

The families. The rules. The expectations.

But now I wonder—Did that wall create Majnun? Or did Majnun also need the wall?

If everyone suddenly said: Fine. Marry Layla. Go home and live a normal life. Would there still be Majnun?

She looks toward the audience.

Or would there only be Qays?

Silence.

CHARACTER 2

A person.

A person who loves someone.

She looks at the mirror.

That would have been enough.

Pause.

She begins putting things back into the bag.

CHARACTER 2

I think I was looking for permission.

Permission to say:

This feeling is real. And it is.

But real does not mean simple. A feeling can be real and still have consequences still face obstacles

CHARACTER 2

There is him.

There is my family.

There is the life I was given.

The responsibilities waiting for me to shoulder

And there is the life I imagine.

Silence.

CHARACTER 2

I used to think choosing meant finding the one thing inside me that nobody else could touch.

But maybe that is also a story.

Maybe I am not outside all stories.

She stands

CHARACTER 2

Maybe I am made from them.

Silence.

CHARACTER 2

Majnun became Majnun because people saw him that way.

And Layla—

Layla became Layla.

The beloved.

She shakes her head slightly.

It tells us everything about what she meant.

And almost nothing about who she was.

Silence.

She picks up the earring again.

CHARACTER 2

Maybe that is the question I should have asked from the beginning.

Not: “Is my love strong enough?”

But: “What kind of person does this love ask me to become?”

Silence

She puts on the second earring.

This time, she does not hesitate.

CHARACTER 2

Not Majnun,

Not the person who leaves simply because leaving is beautiful.

She picks up her bag.

CHARACTER 2

But also not the person who stays simply because staying is expected.

Silence.

CHARACTER 2

Just—

She looks into the mirror.

CHARACTER 2

Someone who has to decide what to carry.

She opens the bag.

Her hands move through the objects.

One by one.

She stops.

CHARACTER 2

I am...

She looks toward the other women.

When you tell my story after me—

Who will I become?

The four women remain in their separate spaces.

No one answers.

The question remains.

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