Twist in the tale: Jordan’s take on a classic play features Syrian refugees

There were 17 hungry children in worn-out clothes banging on the orphanage tables as they demanded kebabs, chicken and ful fava-bean stew.

What they got did not even begin fill their empty stainless steel bowls, so one hungry orphan, a red-headed boy called Oliver, demanded more – and that was his crime.

This was how the first Arabic language adaptation of Oliver! opened on a stage in Amman last week, with an amateur cast of adult Jordanians and Syrian refugees.

The British musical, written and composed by Lionel Bart, is based on the Charles Dickens classic novel Oliver Twist, which exposed the poverty, hardships and cruelty meted out to orphans, in London in the early 19th century, as well as the practice of child labour.

While this Middle East production of the musical was featured in a contemporary Arab city rather than Victorian London, the novel’s themes still resonated.

This Oliver, was played by Fadi, a Syrian child. After being thrown out of the orphanage for his insolence, he is sold to an undertaker, who changes his name to “beggar” in Arabic, hurls insults at him by the dozen and forces him to clean the parlour that contains a black coffin and photographs of the dead. Labelled a street boy, he has only scraps of food to eat and sleeps on the floor.

Original article by Suha Ma’ayeh

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Twist in the tale: Jordan’s take on a classic play features Syrian refugees