The Jungle Comes to Brooklyn
A small Afghan girl stands in front of a drunk Englishman. Little Amal (Annabelle Tural) has just been found alone, wandering the chaotic corridors of a refugee camp. Out of necessity, she’s been entrusted to Boxer’s (Pearce Quigly) care. Her innocence is jarring to him, to us. The room is silent for the first time as she looks at him with eager eyes.
“Y’alright, pet. Now, it’s all getting a bit messy round here, so me and you, we’re going to go on adventure,” he stumbles, improvising. “Has anyone ever told you about England?”
As Boxer spins a vision of the migrant’s promised land, the audience falls under his joyful spell.
“It’s always sunny, there hasn’t been a day of rain since Margaret Thatcher closed the mines,” he continues. People giggle. “We’ve got a Queen, called Elizabeth, who’s a bit like your grandma, and she lives in a big house in London, and you can always go round for a cuppa tea with her and Paul McCartney, and, and, Keith Richards slamming the brandy.” He’s on a roll now. “And Shakespeare, who’s writing it all down…with a quill…”
Welcome to the Calais Jungle, a real-life migrant encampment that stood from January 2015 to October 2016. A notorious purgatory on so many slow, expectant journeys, where there was little food, water, space, tents, clothing. Where children played in the European mud. Where the power of a well-told story could generate empathy, understanding, action. Where there was more hope than I’ve known in my lifetime.
Here, over 8,000 refugees from Syria, Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan, Eritrea and beyond, forced from many places into one, became the United People of the Jungle.
Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson’s play brings the camp to Brooklyn — literally (the Good Chance Dome, built at the camp in 2015, is erected in the lobby). After being workshopped in England at the Young Vic and again on the West End, it has found a home at St. Ann’s Warehouse.
The venue was a fortuitous choice. St. Ann’s, which often houses English work known for physicality, eccentricity and creativity, has transformed the warehouse space into a makeshift Afghan restaurant. The ceiling is draped with colorful fabric and artwork covers the walls. We sit in the dirt at long community tables as the action unfolds around us.
The piece’s strongest elements are also its most human, like Okot, a young Sudanese refugee played by Rudolphe Mdlongwa with the rooted intensity of a tree in a storm, recounting his harrowing journey to Calais. Amidst the tragedy are simple moments of unadulterated joy – shared worship, spontaneous music and dance, a framed restaurant review, a chocolate cake with candles on a fourth birthday. These things give a face, a story, to a universal crisis.
However, Act II goes awry. As the play nears the three-hour mark, it falls into various virtue-signaling traps it had previously avoided. Writers Murphy and Robertson paint an incomplete geopolitical picture, leaning on tired tropes and collective country-wide guilt.
I’ve called upon a more knowledgeable friend, Angesom Teklu, to extrapolate. Teklu is an Eritrean dissident who has experienced the oppression and human rights violations of his home country firsthand. He now tells his story to high schools across the country. Below is his statement, in part, for your consideration.
As someone who knows many refugees who have passed through the Calais camp, I can attest to the horrific conditions that they have faced. The play correctly assigns blame for these conditions to the English and French governments, who have failed to fulfill their humanitarian obligations to provide safe haven for those who flee persecution and violence in their home countries. But as an Eritrean, I also know that the blame must also be placed squarely on the shoulders of the Eritrean regime, which is the root cause of the forced migration of its citizens. The Eritrean government has been notorious for its brutality, repression, and abuse of human rights. Many of my friends and family have been forced to flee Eritrea to escape persecution, torture, and even death at the hands of the regime.
The Eritrean government has been accused of conscripting citizens into indefinite military service, torture, extrajudicial killings, and arbitrary arrests and detentions. The UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea has reported that the regime has committed crimes against humanity, including enslavement, enforced disappearances, rape, and murder. The forced migration of Eritreans is a direct result of the oppressive policies of the Eritrean regime, which has made life so unbearable for its citizens that they have no choice but to flee. The Eritrean government has also been accused of profiting from human trafficking, which has led to the exploitation and abuse of Eritrean refugees who pass through Calais and other refugee camps in Europe.
Therefore, while I applaud the play's efforts to shed light on the plight of refugees and the role that the English and French governments have played in exacerbating their suffering, I also urge the international community to address the root causes of forced migration. The Eritrean regime must be held accountable for its crimes against humanity, and the international community must work together to ensure that refugees are provided with safe haven and the support they need to rebuild their lives.
The play's portrayal of the refugee crisis is a powerful reminder that we must all do more to address this global humanitarian crisis. But we must also recognize that the root causes of forced migration are complex and multifaceted, and require a concerted effort by all stakeholders to resolve. The Eritrean regime must be held accountable for its role in forcing its citizens to flee, and the international community must work together to provide a safe haven for refugees and address the underlying causes of forced migration.
From March, 2023. Images: Teddy Wolff