“The Container” is a production directed by Tom Wright and produced by Digital Theatre. It captivates some of the struggles that refugees face in order to seek refuge in Europe, including realistic and tragic elements.
Witten by: Lydia Amezcua-Ramirez
Asylum Seeking
The setting of this production takes place in a real life shipping container, hence the title of the production. The cast consists of six characters, all who come from different backgrounds but with the same end goal, which is to arrive to England safely and begin their new life. The other character is an agent who is in charge of getting them there. While some of these characters hope to start over and escape the violent Middle East, some hope to be reunited with their family. In the past years this was a real and serious issue. There were hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing from the Middle East in hopes of receiving asylum in Europe. However, as the numbers of refugees entering the country was becoming too high, so were the restrictions, meaning that it became harder for the refugees to travel and get into Europe safely.
This production illustrates the difficulty of doing so as shown through the characters. Since they each have a story, they all reveal why they were brought into the container and how tiring their journey has been.
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Elements of the Production
- The need for food: In the container, the refugees would go days without food or water, having to conserve the little they had. When a woman had entered the container with them she had brought along a few pieces of bread and chocolate which she shared. The characters had never seemed so eager to eat given that they were starving. This can be expected if people are trapped for days in an isolated, dark environment like the container.
- Money: The journey to England would not be free, it came at a cost in which the characters had to pay money for. When the agent in charge of the refugees had demanded more money for the refugees to continue their journey they all had a rough time caving in and not all of them had the extra fifty dollars on them that the agent demanded. This seemed like a trick and a method of manipulation that one would expect to see in a real life situation like that. The refugees had come way too far to give up which is something people take advantage of.
3. Women: Just the simple fact of being a woman was a disadvantage. When one of the woman characters in the container did not have the fifty dollars that the agent demanded for them to continue, he suggested a different method of paying. The poor woman had no other choice but to follow the agent elsewhere, where eventually it can be assumed she was taken advantage of and killed because she had never returned.
4. False Promises: One of the characters in the production had mentioned that it was his third time traveling to England because the agents he had hired before had tricked him and took his money. This is something that many refugees encounter, false promises of being led to safety when in reality it is a scam to take away their money. At the end of the production, whether or not the refugees got to England safely remained a mystery.
Overall, I really enjoyed the production because it really captivated my attention and because it was on a topic that most people these days seemed to have stopped talking about. This issue was a big concern in the past but should not be forgotten. Many hear about what goes on but do not really take the time to consider all the things that refugees go through. This film did an amazing job at giving us an insight on that situation.