‘The Beekeeper of Aleppo’ was adapted for the stage by Nesrin Alrefaai and Matthew Spangler (The Kite Runner) from Christy Lefteri’s international best-selling novel.
Most of us have become hardened to watching TV news heralding the arrival of yet another overcrowded rubber boat carrying asylum seekers to our shores. If, like me, that includes you I say “Go see this important play, folks!”
In Asylum Seekers, the clue is in the word ‘Seekers’ – meaning searching with a big PLEASE attached to it. Maybe a better word is needed for Asylum which – apart from meaning to ask for protection from persecution – is of course a descriptive noun for a place housing the mentally ill. So after seeing this production I prefer to say ‘sanctuary’ rather than ‘asylum’. So we get SANCTUARY PLEASE.
That was my thoughts on driving home from the press night at the REP where I had been physically moved – made to feel uncomfortable even – by this story of one family’s horrendous journey from war torn Syria across Europe to our shores.
The story concerns Nuri and his wife Afra, brilliantly played by Alfred Clay and Daphne Kouma. Their idyllic life in Aleppo where Nuri learned to love bees and their attitude to each other through local beekeeper Mustafa (a joyous portrayal by Joseph Long), is torn apart by President Sadat’s self-destructive war on his own people.
Day by day their village and their lives are destroyed. When their son is killed they are left with nothing but trauma and no choice but to leave.
They meet people along the way that live by trickery, treachery, abuse – and a set of rules only someone who has travelled that path could possibly understand. Apart from the despots and the slave traders there are the displaced, the tainted, classes lower than underclasses who have all but lost the will to dream of a better life – and the dedicated and overwhelmed charity workers who do their best.
Miranda Cromwells’ direction rumbles with energy accompanied by a relentless underscore of despair. For every one step forward there are three steps back.
Ruby Pugh’s ingenious set is equally effective as bee farm, refugee camps, boats, and trucks. The set is complemented by stunning film design from Ravi Deepres of turbulent seas, desolate landscapes and the occasional places of tranquillity
Outside of Nuri and Afra, the rest of the company takes on multiple roles, from smugglers and aid workers to a periphery of weary, traumatised and defeated travellers seeking that ever-elusive sanctuary. That includes Angeliki (Nadia Williams), a Somalia woman too frightened to leave Athens as she waits for news of her stolen child and the cheeky young street kid Mohammed (a humorous yet poignant performance from Elham Mahyoub).
The beehive metaphor – a society which works for the good of all –cleverly bookends the production and offers a beacon of hope to take away with us.
Syria’s refugees have of course been superseded by other wars in Europe as well as Africa but the message is the same; that we should not be turning them away but offering compassion and to share what we are custodians – not owners – of.
In a way, the bit we see of wall-to-wall red life jacketed souls crammed like sardines in death trap dinghies is the easiest part of their journeys.
Powerful theatre – superbly constructed and passionately told.
The Beekeeper of Aleppo runs at the Rep until Saturday, June 17. Click here for times, tickets and more information.
*****
