UNCIVILIZED to Premiere at Theatre Passe Muraille with Ahmad Meree
Performances will run October 13 to 24, 2026.
Theatre Passe Muraille will present the world premiere of UNCIVILIZED, a play by Ahmad Meree, onstage October 13 to 24, 2026. Utilizing a camera, mixed media, and sharp wit, Meree puts citizenship itself in the hot seat by interrogating belonging, identity, and the exhausting performance of assimilation. At its core, the play asks who gets to define what it means to be “civilized,” and what is lost when belonging depends on meeting that definition. UNCIVILIZED traces the journey from leaving home to becoming a refugee, and then a citizen, by questioning what identity really is.
UNCIVILIZED is written and performed by Dora Nominee Ahmad Meree and is making its world premiere in this co-production between Theatre Passe Muraille and 7Spices Theatre. The play draws from Meree's experiences of coming to Canada as a refugee from Aleppo, Syria, in 2016. The show turns the interrogation room into a stage, putting the machinery of citizenship on trial in front of a live audience.
“What does it mean to be civilized? Who is civilized, and according to whom? And what does it mean to be uncivilized, also according to whom? Come explore these questions with me,” says Ahmad Meree, Playwright and performer in UNCIVILIZED.
Meree's acclaimed play Adrenaline earned a 2020 Dora nomination for Outstanding Touring Production and went on to tour internationally, including stops in Egypt, Syria, and Sri Lanka. Nationally, this production toured the National Arts Centre, SummerWorks, and UNO Fest, and was presented at Theatre Passe Muraille in 2020. With UNCIVILIZED, Meree returns to interrogate a different chapter of the refugee experience: not the danger left behind, but the bureaucracy of proving you belong in what comes after.
Trained at the Higher Institute of Theatre Arts in Cairo, Meree built a career as an award-winning actor, playwright, and director across Syria and Egypt before coming to Canada. Now based in Toronto, he continues to work internationally as a performer, playwright, and producer, with previous works including I Don't Know, Suitcase, and Adrenaline. In UNCIVILIZED, Meree brings that full body of experience to bear on a single, unrelenting question, interrogating not just one man, but the system that demands he justify his existence.
Photo Credit: Only1AndyWright Photography & Design
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