Tobi King Bakare Joins Cast For Border Crossings' SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA

Bringing powerful and true testimonies to London's stage in Spring, intercultural theatre company Border Crossings has announced the live cast for SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA. Hosted by Hoxton Hall, this multimedia production blends performance, digital projection, and live debate that reshapes how we understand discussions in the news around the ‘refugee crisis'. In a visually striking and deeply poignant event, SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA directly draws on the Greek model of Theatre as Democracy in a call for engagement and change.

Offering a unique theatrical lens, three young men take to the stage as themselves. Sharing the stage with authentic stories from across the border will be West End actor Tobi King Bakare (For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy, Garrick Theatre), Albie Marber and Vlad Gurdis. Their own identities, perceptions and stories become entwined with the projected testimonies of Syrian women as live meets recorded, male meets female, and Europeans meet Syrians.

As the Syrian women share their first-hand accounts of displacement and resilience, developed during a month-long collaboration with Border Crossings in Turkey in 2023, questions are raised and confronted on stage. King Bakare, Marber and Gurdis act as intermediaries, guiding the audience through a contemporary reimagining of Suppliants by Aeschylus: the second oldest play in existence which tells the story of women from Syria seeking asylum. This interaction raises significant questions about power structures and weaves through personal stories, music, movement, poetry and humour.

SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA presents an urgent opportunity to engage with the current climate, inviting audiences and people of influence to participate in a live forum where theatre, testimony and debate intersect. Through the lens of live performance and conversation, Border Crossings addresses the timely issue of asylum-seeking not through abstract headlines, but as real human stories.

Vlad Gurdis comments, "Aside from the great pleasure of working with Border Crossings again, I am thrilled to be a part of this adaptation of The Suppliants at a time when the terrible prospect of conflict is becoming a norm, and its consequences are trivialised. Since we started working on it two years ago, the show's message and relevance have only gotten more urgent and resonant."

Created in partnership with refugee charity Meryem Kadın Kooperatifi and Çukurova University's Film Department, and working closely with Turkish creatives including video artist Kıvanç Türkgeldi and producer İlke Sanlıer, SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA ensures that those with lived experience of displacement are not only represented but actively shape the work. Solidarity tickets help bring refugees and migrants into the audience, reinforcing the project's commitment to shared space and shared responsibility.

Supported by the British Council Creative Collaborations Grant Programme, the Anna Lindh Foundation, Arts Council England, the National Lottery Community Fund and the Hellenic Society, SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA demonstrates how theatre can do more than reflect the world.

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