Hecuba at the Edinburgh Fringe: A Story of War, Exile and Survival

I am in Scotland for a few days, with friends, trying to finish a book and enjoying one of the most beautiful parts of the world.

This morning I went to the Edinburgh fringe to watch Hecuba, a play written by William Stirling and Arwa Omaren, and produced by William and his wife Charlotte Eagar.

It was a spell-binding performance, moving, amusing and devastating. It is one of the most powerful plays I have ever seen. I strongly recommend going to Edinburgh to watch it. If you are anywhere near ‘Auld Reekie’, clear some space in your diary before the end of the month; it is really worth it.

Rather than write about the play myself, I asked Charlotte - a highly distinguished journalist and former war correspondent to write a guest post for Global Threads.

I hope you will enjoy.

And please, please do book tickets for Hecuba at the Gilded Balloon Teviot while they last.

“I was a queen, seated on a throne of gold / All Trojan women bowed before me,

My sons filled the city with pride / And every wind bore songs of festivals to my ear?”

Arwa Omaren intones to the gripped audience at the Edinburgh festival, the opening lines of her hit, Off-West End theatre award-nominated, show, Hecuba: Why Am I In Your Country?

Arwa weaves her own story of what it was like growing up as a Palestinian refugee in Syria - a country where Palestinians still do not have citizenship, despite having been there for the most part since they fled their homeland in 1948, in what Palestinians call the Nakba, the catastrophe – into that of Hecuba, the doomed Queen of Troy.

The music changes, the lights go down and up, and suddenly Arwa is alone, wailing for her. mother, on the Mountain of Death, abandoned by the people smugglers she paid $1500 to bring her from Syrian to Greece. She thought she was going to die.

“Mum! Mum!!!!!!!!

….Why am I calling for my poor Mum? I spent my life trying to get away from her!”

And Arwa gets the first laugh of the show. For unusually, Hecuba combines a harrowing tale of triumph over tragedy, with rich comedy.

I first met Arwa in February 2021 on zoom from the reception desk of the Harley street office where she was working. She was dressed in her dental receptionist uniform, like a sexy nurse in a Carry On Film.

She was about 33 and had been in the UK since arriving as an asylum seeker in 2018. We were running on-line therapeutic drama workshops for refugees, part of our Trojan Women Project, a combined psycho-social support and advocacy drama project for refugees.

Arwa, as a Palestinian Syrian professional actress and refugee, had been recommended to us to help run the workshops – which had become surprisingly popular.

We had over 60 Syrian participants every week, based all over the Middle East and Europe, all of whom were improvising black comedy sketches inspired by war. This project was suggested by a Syrian refugee producer we’d worked with for several years - because a lot of funny stuff happens in wars, although it’s generally rather sick. We’ve worked with Arwa ever since.

Since 2022, Arwa has played Hecuba, the tragic former Queen of Troy, in our yearly Trojans: Why Am I In Your Country? series of drama workshops and performances for refugees and asylum seekers, based on Euripides’ great anti-war tragedy, the Trojan Women.

The participants, almost all of whom have never acted before - with the exception of Arwa and a couple of Ukrainian professional performers who were also part of our permanent team for several years - work their own stories of exile and loss into Euripides’ extraordinarily powerful play, the first play written about refugees.

Arwa’s current show, Hecuba: Why Am I In Your Country? is different, because it’s a one woman show, written by Arwa and my co-producer and husband, the director William Stirling.

Arwa is one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever met. And her story has everything a British audience could possibly want – a tale of extraordinary danger and courage, and a dog, a baby, a husband and a happy ending.

Arwa grew up in Yarmouk, a Palestinian refugee camp-turned suburb of Damascus, the daughter of a successful Palestinian property developer. A professional actress, in 2011, she’d just graduated top of her class from Damascus’ leading drama school and signed a TV series contract - as she says in the play, quoting Hecuba, “I was a queen…I was going to be a STARRRR!!!” - when the war started … her burgeoning career was as shattered by Assad’s bombs, as her home town of Yarmouk.

After a year under attack in Yarmouk, she and her family fled to Lebanon. For the following year:

“I went into a deep depression. I stayed in my room.

I didn’t leave it for a year. I just sat there and smoked.”

Only to re-surface and build a film career for herself in Lebanon; she even starred in a BBC radio drama series about refugees – and then, age 30, her biological clock a-tick, she bought a golden retriever puppy: she called him Jacko: “he became the love of my life.”

Six years later, her family were kicked out of Lebanon, when the government decided to deport all Palestinian Syrian refugees. As for Yarmouk: “It was completely destroyed. Our house didn’t exist. We managed to save some furniture from the rubble.”

But that was the least of her problems. The various checkpoints had reduced what had previously been a 15 minute journey to six hours. She was nearly killed by an over-excited solder, firing over her head, but the greatest danger came when one of President Assad of Syria’s security officers started tracking her phone.

“I heard they were arresting actors, torturing them, to find out about other actors and artists who were against the regime….” So Arwa took the terrifying decision to pay a people smuggler $1500 to take her to the UK. She had to leave her family, worse still, she had to leave Jacko…

The smuggler said the journey to Turkey would take four hours… “but all smugglers are liars…” She ended up walking for five weeks through the mountains of Kurdistan, with an ever decreasing group of desperate refugees, led by their Kurdish smuggling gang… caught and sent back every time they tried to cross the Turkish border.

She nearly died; she was abandoned on the ‘Mountain of Death,”, but then the smugglers returned for her… “Smugglers are very careful of their reputations for success! She was nearly raped, she nearly drowned, she was nearly shot, she had to swim rivers, take boats, but finally got to the UK and claimed asylum…

After 9 months, asylum was granted… she was safe. But she didn’t have Jacko… but as Arwa says, “I’d heard that British people love dogs…” so she found a charity called War Paws, who raised £3k to bring Jacko over. Arwa was re-united with the love of her life.

By now, she was working as a waitress and dental receptionist. She joined the Trojan Women project part-time as our drama workshops director…It wasn’t a TV career, but as she said in the first Trojans play she acted in with us in 2022 “I still dream that Martin Scorsese will come into the restaurant and discover me….”

Scorsese didn’t. Even worse, wheels came off Arwa’s life again: in October 2022, her landlord decided to sell the flat as he could not afford the mortgage, and she and Jacko were evicted. As Ealing council refused to rehouse her with her dog, she and Jacko found themselves sleeping on the streets. Being clever, she set up camp on Ealing Council’s door step…. So they could not ignore her.

She ended up in St. Mungo’s homeless shelter. The lowest point in her life. “War happens to everyone, but being homeless happens only to you…”

And then…. into the garden of the homeless shelter walked Jonathan, a nice Brit who had lost his job and his flat during Covid… and they fell in love.

Three years later they are happily married with a baby, Arthur (“A British citizen, the first person in my family to have citizenship for three generations”) a flat in Battersea, and of course Jacko.

Jonathan works for Lambeth Council as an employment officer, helping other people who have suffered like him, and Arwa’s one-woman show, Hecuba: Why Am I In Your Country? about her story, was nominated for an Off-West End theatre award and is now running for a month at the Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe, supported by Sir Cameron Mackintosh.

As Arwa says, “Hecuba is every refugee. And she could be you.” For all of us, in our safe little island, are in danger of forgetting that when you see a refugee, there, but for a catastrophe, go you.

As for why Arwa chose the Uk as her haven: “I’m an English speaking Actress, I worked for the BBC.” But most of all, her grandfather, in British-run mandate Palestine, had a British passport. We, the British, have left a legacy in the world: football, cricket, the assumption of innocence in legal systems and often democracy… but sometimes our legacy led to tens of thousands of people being driven from their homes. And that is why Arwa and others like her are in our country.

For more information and to support this wonderful work, please visit:

https://www.trojanwomenproject.org/

TO SEE HECUBA: WHY AM I IN YOUR COUNTRY? 5-31^st August Gilded Balloon. Edinburgh Fringe. https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/hecuba-why-am-i-in-your-country

Later this week, you can hear Peter Frankopan talk with Charlotte and William, and of course with Arwa on the Legacy podcast - which you can find from wherever you get your podcasts….