Refugees on Stage and the Stage as a Refuge
Refugees on Stage and the Stage as a Refuge

Summary/Abstract: The refugees’ topic has been among the hottest ones in today’s Europe for quite a while now, provoking a heated debate, causing sharp divisions in and among countries, and putting under question basic moral values. How has theatre responded to all this? Could such unseen for decades, Teutonic-scale changes in the human landscape of the old continent be grasped by theatre without the usually required time-distance? Does it need even more help from the other arts in order to recreate the nuances of the phenomenon? Has theatre’s take on it been primarily confined to the documentary drama and the ‘verbatim theatre’ for the obvious reasons of building up on the true stories of refugees? Theatre itself has always been a refuge for topics, characters and emotions chased away from the establishment and expelled by the bon tone. How has it been maintaining this so important a role nowadays? And in a time of an ardent strife for universal recognition of the right of free speech, how has theatre been defending another no less essential right of ours – that of preserving human dignity. For it’s exactly human dignity that frequently turns out to be the heaviest burden that has to be abandoned if a refugee is on the run from the “lower” land of suffering and oppression to the “upper” land of freedom and prosperity. Finally, is there a difference in theatre’s handling of the topic before and after the current refugee crisis? And if so, what is it and why? Do the differences stem only from the medium of the theatre or they have deeper socio-cultural roots?This article is an attempt to tackle these questions by means of analyzing an array of shows on the topic both from the last crop and back from the last over a decade now. A special focus, in the last part of the text, is placed on two of the best shows currently running having to do with the topic –‘ Sanctuary’ of the South African Brett Bailey and ‘Vangelo’ of the Italian Pippo. Delbono.

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