It’s a simple approach, but it’s effect-
ive. After the company’s first produc-
tion, an English teacher approached
the artistic team to ask how they’d
taught the kids to memorize their
monologues—it was something they’d
struggled with in class. (One technique:
Al-Jajeh and his colleagues recorded
themselves running lines and sent the
audio to the students via WhatsApp.)But the program also has another,
larger goal: upending stereotypes
around what refugees look like and
showing that they’re not “burdens on
the system” but instead contributing
members of the community.
“Stereotypes limit their identities to
that of a ‘helpless refugee’ or a ‘security
threat,’” says Shaden Abusaleh, Sawa’s
executive producer and another of its
co-founders. “Such confining and
frankly false narratives dehumanize
newcomers, instill fear and breed mis-
trust among the general populace.”
That’s why the productions, which
are presented in Arabic and English
with subtitles in both languages, are
never about “the refugee experience.”In 2016, the students wrote a play about
a group-therapy session in a psychiatric
ward. In 2017, it was an Arabic adaption
of Alice in Wonderland. And 2018’s
play, A Ten Star Family, written in-
house, follows Mahmoud and his nine
brothers and sisters as they prepare for
their youngest sibling’s birthday.
This year, for the first time, Sawa put
on a spring production: The Compassion
Makina, about a group of young profes-
sionals who set out to solve the world’s
problems in 45 minutes. It was Aljaber’s
second show, and he was much more
at ease onstage this time around.
Beyond the fun and comfort he’s
found at Sawa—“I like that they speak
my language and that all my friends
are with me”—the teen has also been
inspired to transfer some of the lessons
he’s learned to life offstage. “I know
that most of the problems in the world,
we can solve them,” he says. “So that is
what I like.”
That’s exactly the kind of thinking
Sawa is hoping to encourage—and
it’s a message that has resonated with
audiences, too. The group’s shows
attract attendees from varied back-
grounds and ethnicities, and the feed-
back is almost always positive.
“Honestly, my favourite and proud-
est moment is walking onstage follow-
ing a performance,” Abusaleh says.
“Seeing the audience and the uncon-
tainable magic in the air that is felt
throughout the theatre. It’s indescrib-
able, but incredibly beautiful.”THE TEEN HAS
BEEN INSPIRED TO
TRANSFER LESSONS
HE’S LEARNED TO
LIFE OFFSTAGE.reader’s digest
12 september 2019