As debates about the treatment of migrant families rage in the United States, a play coming to New York hopes to illuminate the plight of refugees across the Atlantic.
“The Jungle,” a play by two men who spent time in a camp in Northern France with refugees from Africa and the Middle East, will arrive at St. Ann’s Warehouse on Dec. 4. The show received rave reviews when it ran in London last December.
The play was written by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, two Englishmen who traveled to the Calais Jungle, a tattered French migrant camp, to help its residents. They lived there and raised money to start a theater in a geodesic dome tent, which they named Good Chance. The theater hosted performances in music, kung fu and dance before it was forcibly taken down by the French authorities in March 2016.
The pair turned their experiences into “The Jungle,” which ran at the Young Vic with a cast that included three former camp residents. The show depicts a grim and chaotic year at the camp and explores whether volunteer intervention actually made a positive impact.