The Beekeeper of Aleppo was a surprise hit novel but the stage version on its way to Leeds Playhouse began with just a feeling and a Facebook post.
After volunteering at a refugee centre in Athens in 2016 – a decision prompted by her own experiences as a daughter of Cypriot refugees – bestselling author Christy Lefteri wrote on her Facebook page: ‘You wouldn’t believe what’s going on here.’
Leferi was too overwhelmed with her volunteering work to post again, but the seeds of the novel had been sown, and the hard graft of writing it down would soon begin.
Despite the tales of devastation and destruction she had heard, the first scene that Lefteri wrote was one of hope – a man salvaging a pomegranate for his wife among a pile of rotting fruit.
“Just from that one scene,” remembers Lefteri. “The characters started to come to life. It just sort of grew from there.”
That feeling of hope, against a terrible backdrop of deep sorrow and hardship, is one that Lefteri remembers well from her own childhood. Her father was a commanding officer and the family had to flee the civil war in Cyprus starting a new life in London, but her parents tried hard not to bring the war with them.
“I remember this feeling of embracing being in London. There was a lot of joy and a lot of togetherness: barbecues, friendships, loving life. They’d lost their homes, family, so much, and yet there was so much joy.”
Lefteri spotted a similar capacity for joy at the refugee centres she volunteered at for two consecutive summers and it’s that feeling – a surprising uplifting of the spirits – that underpins her novel. There’s despair in her story of a traumatised family who leave war-torn Syria to travel across Europe and finally battle their way through to an immigration centre in the UK.
But there is also hope, and she vividly remembers the way that many of the men waited all day outside the centre, just happy to watch their family safe and content inside.
“When I was at the centre and children came in and started to play, it was such a joyful thing. It’s hard to miss because the opposite is right there – so raw and real and close. The light that I used to see in those men’s eyes when they saw their children playing, there’s something about the strength of connection between these people that led me to start writing.”
It’s the raw humanity of the novel that first attracted Olivier-award winning director Miranda Cromwell to the stage adaptation, and she believes that the live show is, in some respects, even more uplifting than the source material.
“When I read the script, I felt it pulled out a story of love, loss, resilience and hope in the face of insurmountable loss,” notes Cromwell. “The novel is incredibly sad in places. We still have that in our show but there’s also an overarching cathartic nature to our story, it creates a sense that it’s possible to go through all of this and still find love. To be more than what has just happened to you.”
Cromwell hopes that the theatrical aspects of the show will help the audience connect to the story on a deeply personal level. Powerful projected images, which flow over the set throughout the production, pull the audience deep into protagonist Nuri’s troubled mind as he travels across Europe with his blinded wife Afra.
“We’re adding this beautiful and evocative soundscape. You’re able to live in the world of the book when you experience it on stage. With the projections, we wanted to have images that would have been burned into Nuri’s memory – things that he was trying to push away, memories that were buried and hidden, or images that kept repeating themselves because of his PTSD.”
Co-writer and cultural consultant Nesrin Alrefaai grew up in Syria, so the exploration ofNuri’s trauma was one of the most important aspects of Lefteri’s story. While we hear lots of stories about veterans suffering from PTSD, we still hear relatively little about ‘ordinary’people struggling with the psychological fallout from war
“In lots of cultures, including the Syrian community, mental health is not something that is talked about,” reflects Alrefaai. “By talking about it indirectly in our play, and showing Nuri’s lack of control, hopefully we can encourage people who are suffering from PTSD not to suffer in silence.”
Alrefaai has gone through the immigration system herself as she built a new life from nothing and spent 18 months working with Syrian refugees at immigration centres in the UK. She hopes the stage adaptation adds a human dimension to the stories we’re shown on the news.
“I hope that the way we present this story can challenge the stereotype of what an immigrant or refugee looks like. Whether people agree or disagree is fine. We just need to start a conversation, especially at this time.’
The Beekeeper of Aleppo lands at Leeds Playhouse from 31st May to 3rd June as part of its UK tour. To book 0113 213 7700 or online www.leedsplayhouse.org.uk