Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 104

The first performances of Syria: The Trojan Women, in Amman, not only
provided a much-needed sense of pride and of community amongst Syrian
refugees, but also profoundly impacted the Jordanians in the audiences.
Not surprisingly, the tremendous burden of hosting more than one million
Syrians had made Jordanians resentful toward the refugees. But the personal
stories recounted in the play transformed the audience’s view of the Syrian
refugees from statistics to fellow human beings for whom they felt empathy.
So, not only did the experience of writing and acting in the play have a
transformative effect on the refugee cast, but it also had a positive impact
on how the Jordanians in the audience viewed the Syrians in their country.
The refugee cast had hoped to appear on stage in Washington DC, where
they had been invited to perform by the Laboratory for Global Performance and
Politics at Georgetown University, but their visas for the US were denied (QR
Code �). It turns out that empathy for any and all refugees is in short supply
in the US; they simply are not granted visitors’ visas. Unable to perform at
Georgetown, the cast of Syria: The Trojan Women nonetheless spoke directly
to the Washington audience—via skype at the Unheard Voices: Syria Trojan
Women Summit.
The members of the cast behind this carefully crafted play have evolved
significantly over the past � years; both their confidence as theater makers
and their desperation for peace have increased as the war drags on. When
Syria: The Trojan Women was invited to tour England in the summer of ����,
the cast and their Refuge Production producers all felt that the original
version needed updating. The cast went to work with director Zoe Lafferty
and created a new production entitled Queens of Syria. The process is
captured in the documentary film of the same name.
Queens of Syria Webiste
URL: http://bit.ly/2tFAfv0
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Read Reem al Sayyah’s essay in this special issue.
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