‘The Jungle’ Theater Review: A Vital, Necessary Journey Into a Modern Refugee Camp
This British important is that rarest of theatrical experiences: It makes us think, it makes us feel and it challenges us
Thom Geier | December 9, 2018 @ 9:00 PM
Last Updated: December 10, 2018 @ 6:20 AM
Photo: Teddy Wolff
The refugee crisis can seem like an abstract, far-off issue. But “The Jungle,” which opened Sunday at Brooklyn’s St. Ann’s Warehouse after a run in London, drops us smack in the center of a camp of asylum-seekers — with all its slapdash infrastructure, clash of cultures and pulsing humanity.
The St. Ann’s theater space has been transformed by set designer Meriam Buether into the Afghan Cafe, where the audience sits in front of long, narrow tables on a dirt floor with wider platforms that serve as walkways for the actors to walk among us.
We are in a re-created version of the Jungle, an actual camp that emerged on a landfill site near Calais, France, for refugees seeking asylum in the U.K. just 22 miles away. We meet people from Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Sudan who manage to set aside their religious, cultural and histroic differences to create a kind of functioning city with a common purpose.
In due course, we also meet a group of British do-gooders who are initially viewed with skepticism. “You have destroyed my village three times in the last 200 years,” the Afghan restaurant owner Salar (Ben Turner) tells one of the Brits, whose number includes a naive selfie-stick-wielding Eton graduate (Alex Lawther, “The End of the F—ing World”) who describes the setting as “Glastonbury without the toilets.”
Before long, though, the interlopers become part of the community, helping to establish basic services like housing, sanitation and schooling for the increasing number of unaccompanied children in the camp.
But these outsiders have their own reasons for being there, sometimes just as flawed despite meaning well. “Everyone here is running away from something. We’re all refugees,” notes the banjo-playing drunkard Boxer (Trevor Fox), who is estranged from both his ex-wife and young daughter back in the U.K. but finds a sense of purpose in the camps.
“When does a place become a place?” asks Safi (Ammar Haj Ahmad), an English literature scholar from Aleppo who serves as one of our many narrators. Playwrights Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson address that question in a most vital way — aided by the sharp direction of Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin — by intermingling moments of conflict and horror with lighter moments of warmth, music and laughter.
Because despite their many differences, the refugees we meet share similar stories of deprivation and of hope that they might yet seek a better life in a far-off land. “A refugee dies many times,” a teenager from Darfur named Okot (John Pfumojena) says at one point as he recounts his remarkable and harrowing journey to a camp that French authorities seem bent on breaking up. (They did just that two years ago — though a video update late in the show informs us that 2,000 refugees, including 200 unaccompanied minors, are still seeking shelter outside Calais.)
“The Jungle” is that rarest of theatrical experiences. It makes us think, it makes us feel and it challenges us to find the human faces in the masses of images we see on newscasts.
Broadway's 12 Top-Grossing Non-Musical Plays of All Time, From 'War Horse' to 'Harry Potter' (Photos)
Broadway isn't just for musicals. Here are the all-time top-grossing straight plays on the Great White Way, according to grosses compiled by the Broadway League up to March 8, 2020. (These figures aren't adjusted for inflation, so recent hits at current sky-high ticket prices have a definite advantage.)
12. "700 Sundays" (2004-05; 2013-14)
Total gross: $32,029,177
Billy Crystal's autobiographical one-man show found favor in two separate runs on Broadway nearly a decade apart.
Photo: Carol Rosegg
11. "Betrayal" (2019)
Total gross: $32,621,468
Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Cox and Zawe Ashton packed 'em in for the fourth Broadway production of Harold Pinter's time-bending drama.
10. "August: Osage County" (2007-09)
Total gross: $32,835,606
Tracy Letts' Pulitzer-winning drama became a huge hit on stage without any big stars -- and then a 2013 movie starring with Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts.
9. "Proof" (2000-03)
Total gross: $32,896,994
David Auburn's drama about a woman with a troubled legacy of both mental illness and genius-level math skills earned multiple Tony Awards, including for star Mary-Louise Parker.
8. "The Play That Goes Wrong" (2017-19)
Total gross: $34,341,708
This farce about an amateur theater company's mishap-prone production of a mystery play is another London import that found popularity on this side of the Atlantic.
7. "God of Carnage" (2009-10)
Total gross: $37,345,584
Yasmina Reza's barnstorming dramedy about two dueling couples earned the Tony for Best Drama -- as well as nominations for James Gandolfini, Jeff Daniels, Marcia Gay Harden and Hope Davis.
6. "It's Only a Play" (2014-15)
Total gross: $37,500,966
Terrence McNally's backstage comedy was a huge hit thanks to the Broadway reteaming of Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane, stars of the Tony-winning musical "The Producers" a decade before.
5. "Angels in America" (2018 revival)
Total gross: $40,937,028
The 2018 revival of Tony Kushner's two-part epic won three Tony Awards, including for co-stars Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane.
4. "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" (2014-16)
Total gross: $68,321,435
Another London import, Simon Stephens' adaptation of Mark Haddon's YA novel follows an autistic boy on a quest for the killer of his neighbor's dog.
Photo: Joan Marcus
3. "War Horse" (2011-13)
Total gross: $74,975,253
Michael Morpurgo's YA novel about a British boy's search for his horse in World War I inspired both this epic play, complete with life-size puppets, and Steven Spielberg's 2011 film.
2. "To Kill a Mockingbird" (2018 - )
Total gross: $120,211,443* (as of March 8, 2020)
Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of the beloved Harper Lee novel may have been snubbed by Tony nominators for Best Play, but it has been drawing crowds since opening in December 2018.
1. "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two" (2018 - )
Total gross: $174,056,581* (as of March 8, 2020)
The stage sequel to J.K. Rowling's saga about the now-grown boy wizard has extra advantages -- since it's a two-night (and two-ticket) epic that plays in a musical-sized auditorium to diehard Potterheads.
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You don’t need an orchestra — or songs — to draw audiences
Broadway isn't just for musicals. Here are the all-time top-grossing straight plays on the Great White Way, according to grosses compiled by the Broadway League up to March 8, 2020. (These figures aren't adjusted for inflation, so recent hits at current sky-high ticket prices have a definite advantage.)