Social justice in the spotlight

Normally,  a play’s value is determined by how entertaining it is, and Hamline University Theater certainly takes that into account when choosing productions. For the spring season, however, they wanted something that was not only entertaining but also had a deeper message. Director Carolyn Levy explained that “Crocodile Seeking Refuge” stood out to her because of its social justice themes that are particularly relevant today.

“I think that my primary interest in theater is around the area of theater and social change; using theater to raise awareness and get people to think about issues, to talk about issues. And so I’m always interested in plays that take us in that direction, and sometimes it’s about immigration and asylum, which is a very topical thing right now. And also the characters are very, very interesting to me. The play takes place in England, but the issues that it raises are almost exactly the same as the issues that happen in this country,” Levy said.

Because the play’s plot revolves around the challenges refugees face, Levy said that they wanted to learn more about the lives of actual refugees. She and the cast worked with several different real-world organizations to lend authenticity to the performance.

“The other thing I really like to do as I’m working on a play is work with community organizations that are involved in the topic in some way. So we’ve worked with The Advocates for Human Rights, and The Center for Victims of Torture and Jewish Community Action [which] are all agencies that work with asylum seekers, and they taught us so much and really brought a lot to the play,” Levy said.

She added that these organizations provided some eye-opening statistics that brought the message of the play home. Yes, Americans place an importance on human rights, but many of us don’t realize how many refugees don’t receive asylum or how grave their situations can be.

“For me the message of the play is that as Americans we as as a country […] pride ourselves on being the champions of human rights all over the world; there are countries where we send troops to protect human rights, and yet within our own borders we are sometimes treating those people who came to us for safety and refuge really terribly and sending them back. The statistics are about 2/3 of those who file for asylum get sent back. So it’s huge.”

Others involved in the play agreed that “Crocodile Seeking Refuge” helped them see what their characters have to go through. Junior Selene Emad-Syring, who plays a British lawyer practicing asylum law, said that while the statistics alone are shocking, the struggle to gain social acceptance is often just as challenging for refugees.

“[The play] definitely raises awareness about how hard it really is for refugees to gain not only legal but social acceptance into countries like Britain and America. I think it’s an issue that a lot of people don’t think about very often… Most of the cases that come through the people don’t get accepted, they get deported back to their own countries. And these are people who are running away from torture, and war, and their families are dead in some cases, and they’ve been beaten, and horrible things have happened to them, and they’re forced to return back…You know when you’re running for your life you don’t think to like grab all your paperwork, and then if you don’t have that in this new country then you’re sent home again. So in some cases a refugee being deported is sentencing him or her to death,” said Emad-Syring.

Because the play deals with such serious issues, the actors understandably feel pressure to do their best, something that’s easier said than done. Not only do they have to master different dialects, but many of the actors play multiple characters. Sophomore Ashe Jaafaru portrays two different characters, while Phasoua Vang portrays four. Vang admitted that switching characters can be confusing, while Jaafaru said that she finds the quick costume changes more challenging.

“I don’t think [role-switching] is difficult; I think the quick costume changes are difficult, you know. Because sometimes we’re just like, ‘Oh next scene you have to be another person!’ That’s really scary,” Jaafaru said. “But I don’t think it’s difficult because you have to just isolate and understand that a certain character has their own story and they have their own truths about them. And my two characters are really different. Josette, she’s an immigrant from the Congo, and then Justine, she’s actually from the U.K. and she’s really wealthy. And she’s a woman of color, but she’s also really privileged at the same time. So they definitely have different attitudes and different situations of how they got to the U.K., so I don’t know; it wasn’t too difficult. It was just like once you understand the story you can kind of create a character out of that.”

Since the script for “Crocodile Seeking Refuge” is based on real refugees’ life experiences, the actors said that they wanted to do their characters justice and make them believable. Vang said that depicting her character Hoai-Mi’s accent realistically was one way that she added depth to her portrayal.

“So for Hoai-Mi I had to learn a Vietnamese accent. And not just Vietnamese; we placed her coming out of Hanoi, which is in Northern Vietnam. And so speaking with some of my Vietnamese friends, they tell me so much about the different dialects. And my friend who happens to come from Southern Vietnam says that the Northern Vietnamese accent is much heavier and stronger. So just learning about those differences within the ethnic group and in that country…it was a challenge for me to find that Vietnamese accent and not make it stereotypical or fake, you know; just like infusing the realness in that language,” Vang said.

Emad-Syring echoed Vang’s statement about staying true to her character, and noted that this particular show has been a challenge because the cast has only had about a month to prepare; usually they have at least two months to prepare for a major production.

“I want to do this character justice, and it’s been the biggest challenge for me so far in my acting career that I’ve had to face because she is the biggest character that I’ve ever played. And she’s very complicated and there’s a lot more to her. I don’t want to end up being Selene saying the lines onstage, you know; I really want to embody Harriet. The other thing, the real hardest part of this particular process for me has been a whirlwind. It’s been really fast since the day we got cast to we open in two days. It’s been intense and a lot of work, and I’ve been trying to balance homework, sleep and my social life,” Emad-Syring said.

While the actors acknowledged that the play’s conclusion doesn’t necessarily tie up loose ends, they felt that it is thought-provoking and leaves the audience to draw their own conclusions.

“Towards the end there’s a little more open-endedness, and maybe that might be something I don’t like as much; there’s not a lot of closure. But then there’s pros and cons to that. There’s kind of like open-endedness of ‘How did this character end up?’ or ‘What happened?’ or ‘What’s going to happen next to this person?’ But there’s pros and cons to that, and I think it’s kind of left to the audience to decide, it’s left for other people to make their own judgments of what they think will happen,” Jaafaru said.

Vang believes that the ending reflects real life in the sense that these people’s lives don’t end with happily ever afters; their lives are still ongoing.

“There is often no happy ending. And not that life has to be happy or that it is judged on that curve or anything like that, but things in people’s lives are open-ended and I think you… might be leaving this play feeling that these people’s lives are still changing and that it’s not linear and […] that it still feels like it’s ongoing,” said Vang.

Ultimately, the cast hopes that people will attend to support the theater department and recognize the overall theme of social justice and empathy. Jaafaru said she hopes the importance and significance of the show’s message comes across to the audience.

“I just want to be able to portray each character the best I can. I guess that’s always my biggest challenge. I don’t want to it to be exaggerated, I don’t want it to be kind of watered down, I just want it to be really authentic and believable; that people will believe this is a real person. Because these are real stories of things that happen to people every day, and all the time people are in these certain situations with immigration. And I really just want to be able to have that story be told. It needs to be told.”