Europe
The children’s fluency in German varied, but there was one phrase almost all of them seemed to have mastered: Hilfe! Hilfe! Ich bin Auslander (“Help! Help! I am a foreigner”). They yelled it at each other as they played cops and robbers; one would pretend to shoot another, who would raise his or her hands and plead for compassion on the basis of refugee status. They thought it was funny, giggling as they said it, but the truth beneath their words was disturbing and profound: though they’d only just arrived and many were no more than seven, they already understood their status as outsiders and how dangerous that might be.
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David Greig’s Europe–a play about two wandering refugees, Katia and Sava, her father–could take place almost anywhere in Europe, a reality underscored by the title and the fact that Greig never names the town or the country where his play is set. Two key characters the refugees encounter–one an opportunistic black marketer, the other a disgruntled unemployed worker–are called Morocco and Berlin respectively, suggesting that Greig is trying to give his play an international scope. And the supporting characters feature a melting pot of names: Adele, Horse, Billy, Fret. The Scottish-born Greig’s drama brings to mind the conflicts between refugees and right-wing thugs in any number of cities, countries, or continents; Mary-Arrchie Theatre has chosen to set its production on the Macedonian border during the recent war in Kosovo.
As Katia and Adele begin to fall in love, and Berlin begins to succumb to a murderous rage, the question guiding Greig’s play is whether the refugees will find a means of escape before the ethnic hatred embodied by Berlin and Horse engulfs them. By the close of the play, Katia and Sava have reached diametrically opposed ends suggesting two possible directions for Europe’s future–an ever more violent dystopia or a society of compromise brought about by unlikely alliances. Horse and Berlin’s increasingly hateful actions are juxtaposed with the emerging romance between Katia and Adele, who sit across from each other in a train car romantically intoning the names of the cities where they might find peace and happiness.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Daniel Guidara.
