In the News

Educational Center for the Arts merges past with headlines in refugee play ‘Anon(ymous)’

May 10th, 2016

NEW HAVEN >> Students with ACES Educational Center for the Arts have learned that for refugees, home can be a new destination. In playwright Naomi Iizuka’s work “Anon(ymous),” which tells of a young refugee traveling to the United States to reunite with his family, the titular character must adapt to a tumultuous landscape of people and locations.

According to ECA instructor Carolyn Ladd, she and director Peter Loffredo were looking for a play for their students to adapt that would be relevant to current events. “We felt it was a very timely issue last year when we read it and fell in love with it, and it became even more timely over the summer with the Syrian refugee crisis,” she said. “We often like to view pieces that are theater for social change, and we felt this fit into that category.”

Ladd, the dramaturg for the play, said she has used the play, a modern adaptation of Homer’s “The Odyssey,” as a chance to get students thinking about daily realities for refugees. In addition to doing research, students in the play met with refugees from Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services in New Haven.

“Their eyes have been opened up. Some didn’t really know what was going on at all, and others did, but putting real faces to the term ‘refugee’ and hearing people’s personal stories was deeply, deeply moving for them and has enabled them to embody their work within this piece with great depth and understanding,” Ladd said. “I think they will be changed for life knowing what the terms ‘refugee’ and ‘immigrant’ really mean.”

Dennis Wilson, manager of the IRIS Public Education About Refugees program, said he believes today’s political climate contributes to a lot of public ignorance about refugees. “There is misinformation going around, so I do try to address some in particular. The one you hear a lot is the claim that refugees make us less safe as a country,” he said. “I talk about rigorous background checks and the long waiting periods refugees go through, to shed some light on that. There’s also an idea even among those who support refugees that accepting refugees is a burden but a good thing we should do. I try to address the idea that refugees are not a burden, and talk about well-known refugees from the past, like Albert Einstein.”

Wilson said he believes having refugees tell their stories, such as the Burundi-born Consolata Ndayishimiye and Iraqi Maher Mahmood, who met with the ECA students, does “90 percent of the work in humanizing refugees.”

Sophomore Dani Brown said meeting with the refugees was a different experience from her expectations. “You could tell Consolata went through a lot,” she said. Dani said she was especially moved by how excessively normal both Ndayishimiye and Mahmood were, although both fled war-torn countries and witnessed carnage firsthand. “I saw Maher’s art, and he was so friendly, and both of them open up about their lives just like any other person,” Dani said. “We are a country of immigrants, so everyone looks American.”

Junior Coral Ortiz said her research on refugees was enlightening. “Politicians say a lot of things that are not factual,” she said. “(The refugees) explicitly said it was hard to come here and fit in. I think we take so many things for granted. To hear that they almost died because of bombs made me feel grateful for what I have.”

Ladd, who is coaching students on accents for the show, said many of the students in the show create environments with their bodies in the minimalist show under the supervision of movement coach Pamela Newell.

Performances are at the Little Theatre on Thursday and Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $12 at the door.

New Haven Register