After an award-winning run at the Edinburgh Fringe last year, Alecky Blythe’s verbatim play Do We Look Like Refugees?! opens in London next month as part of a UK tour.
The playwright, whose most recent work, London Road, is set to open at the National Theatre next week, created Do We Look Like Refugees?! after conducting interviews in a Georgian refugee settlement. Talking to people who had lost their homes following the 2008 August War, Blythe used their stories to create a drama about the love and enterprise that emerged as a result of the war.
The play, which runs from 19 to 29 May at the Riverside Studios, won three awards at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe including a prestigious Fringe First and The Stage Best Ensemble Award. Described as both poignant and surprisingly humorous, the production looks at how the temporary refugee settlement is now evolving into the inhabitants’ permanent home town.
Blythe is well-known for her unique verbatim writing style. Her plays include the The Girlfriend Experience, which was set in a seaside brothel and was staged at the Royal Court and Young Vic theatres, and Cruising, which charted a pensioner’s search for love. The playwright collaborated with composer Adam Cork for her current production London Road, a musical based on interviews Blythe conduced with people living in Ipswich following the murder of five women in 2006.
Do We Look Like Refugees?! is performed in Georgian, with English surtitles, by actors from Georgia’s largest national theatre company, Rustaveli Theatre. The show was produced as part of an exchange programme by the National Theatre Studio.
Purni Morell, Head of the National Theatre Studio, said: “I’m delighted that Do We Look Like Refugees?! will have a life in London – the National’s ongoing collaboration with the Rustaveli Theatre isn’t yet widely known, so it’s wonderful to be able to bring these stories to London audiences.”
CM