'It's not our story, but it's every person in Syria': Syrian refugees stage a new play in Edmonton

Amena Shehab fled Syria with her three children as her country began to descend into a brutal civil war. They arrived in Canada in 2012. Her husband Aksam Alyousef joined them in Edmonton in 2016.

Now the couple are behind a new play called Hagar — on-stage at the the ATB Financial Arts Barns in Edmonton.

Hagar refers to a biblical character from the book of Genesis, who is banished by Abraham along with their infant son Ishmael.

But in this play, Hagar is a Syrian woman who is abandoned by her husband, betrayed by a smuggler and trying desperately to escape Aleppo with her infant son.

Hagar was written by Aksam Alyousef, and Amena Shehab plays the title role. She tells Day 6 host Brent Bambury that although the play is not autobiographical, it is based on a shared experience.

You play the starring role in Hagar, and it's written by your husband. Both of you are Syrian refugees. How autobiographical is this play?

It's not our story but it's every person in Syria. People we know, they know Hagar. They know very well because most of them, they went through this.

You and your husband have three children and you have said this place is your fourth child. Can you explain that?

Children, for any parents in the world, are love and cheer and suffering and a lot of work. Lots of feeling. Lots of love and pain. And that's how Hagar is for us.

What was it like for you to inhabit this character, to learn those lines and to speak them onstage?

It's not easy. It's not easy for anyone who went through war and knows what it means to lose all. It's not easy as a mom. It's not easy as a woman from the Middle East. It's not easy for a person who wants to memorize English lines, who [speaks] English as a second language.

But for the emotional difficulty of it, can you describe for me something that's going on in the action, or something that she says during the production that is very emotional for you?

I want to say, how people there can imagine the face of one mother who sees her child murdered. "Who would this child have been? A doctor? A lawyer, engineer? Maybe a garbage collector [who's] now felled to a stray bullet. They are brave for the powerful, the dogs of war."

It's like Hagar said [to her infant son]: "This trip will be humiliating. But what else can I do? You wouldn't find it strange. At your age everything is new. But I'm willing to beg and receive handouts all my life, if it makes you safe."

You became involved in a theatre camp for refugee children in Edmonton. Tell me about that. Why was that an important thing for you to do?

Actually, Concrete Theatre started this project with Mieko Ouchi. Mieko is my friend and she wanted to do something for Syrian refugees — for the kids. Then she called me and we started working together. It's beautiful. It's beautiful to see these kids from your home are happy. It's beautiful to help them, to change their vocabulary. It's with love, sharing, fun and art.

How old are the kids?

We have between six-years-old to 12.

Do you know the specifics of the things that they've been through?

Actually, I [didn't go] through this and I don't want [to]. Let's try to help them to have something beautiful. I don't want to know exactly the story for the kids.

But I remember one of the girls. Her mom, she just kept asking again for this camp and people, they sent emails [saying] they need the camp again. This girl, I don't know what she went exactly through, but she was shy and sad. She refused to stay home. She want to come to the camp. She said, "That's the most beautiful thing that happened to me here."

You can see the kids embracing the world of the imagination, moving into something where there's play and there's the imagination of a different kind of world, then.

Of course. Kids are different. It's easy to adjust. And they forget easier than adults. And the Canadians are so warm, so lovely, so welcoming and that helps the kids to see, "Oh my God, this beautiful home for us." Nothing in the world is perfect, but there is a lovely beautiful place you can be safe and you try to build a new home.

People's experience, if they've lived in Canada all their lives, are so different than your own experience. What do you hope Canadians who see Hagar will take home with them?

In Edmonton, just in Edmonton, there are 5000 Syrian families. I think people who are here will understand the world is a small village now. And the news is everywhere and they see pictures and they see people around [who've] lost their homes and families.

I can't imagine how many times people ask me, "Where you come from?" I said, "From Syria." And they say "Oh, I'm glad you are here." I heard it more than ... I don't know how many times.

But, I want to share this story with a Canadian audience to focus on one thing: a tragedy. But when you listen to it from the voice —  from a person who was there — it's different.

But you know that there are also Canadians who fear immigration. They fear outsiders. They fear that sometimes if people come from a conflict zone, that conflict will come to Canada.

Yes.

Do you expect those people to see Hagar as well?

Yes. It's next door, it's everywhere. There's people who will be against any new idea or new immigrants, but all of us in the end are immigrants. All of us are refugees.

I'm a refugee now in 2018. But someone else came as a refugees in 1900, or 1700. So please, the world is a small village. I hope they look to us in different eyes.

What do you think of, what do you miss, when you think of Syria now?

I miss Damascus. I miss my home. I miss my mom. I miss the old streets of Damascus. The coffee in the morning. I miss my mom's food. I miss my dad's coffee. But I feel I have a home here.

Is Hagar a happy story?

Oh no. Oh no. Hagar is a woman. She's lonely. She's surrounded by awful men. Her husband left her and married other women. The smuggler betrayed her. [All the] men around there are just awful.

But she has Jamal. Jamal is her son. And she hopes to put more love and more peace in Jamal's heart.

Interview edited for length and clarity. To hear the full interview with Amena Shehab, download our podcast or click the 'Listen' button at the top of this page.