Do We Look Like Refugees?!, Assembly@George Street, Edinburgh
Alecky Blythe's latest verbatim piece is based on interviews collected at the Tserovani refugee camp, outside Tbilisi. A cast of five Georgian actors from the distinguished Rustaveli Theatre plays hundreds of characters, thrown together in a makeshift community following the 2008 war in South Ossetia.
There are beekeepers and bakers, politicians and hairdressers, and bureaucrats who are trying to them help them return home through reams of red tape and forms which cost more to purchase than the monthly salary. They have lost everything. "I'm surprised we're even alive, we're so poor," says one. Once again, Blythe uses her recorded delivery technique; the actors wear headphones and repeat the recordings out loud, mimicking the exact intonations of the original subject. I'm still not sure of the point of this but the talented cast tells the stories of the displaced with sensitivity, humour and the occasional rousing folk song.
To 30 August (not 23) (0131 623 3030)
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