Francis Dowlatabadi, and Adrian Neblett playing frontline settlement workers.
by Imtiaz Popat
The Frontliners, a play by Zahida Rahemtulla tells a tale of settlement workers working struggling to house Syrian refugees in late 2016 when the first wave of Syrian refugees arrived.
The headlines read that the goverment is welcoming 25, 000 refugee from Syria, it was the settlement who struggled to house them without resources and housing that was not avaialble. As someone who has worked as a housing search worker for refugees, this play paints a very realistic veiw of the struggles the settlement workers went through in back drop of the political decisions and the lack of funding that made lives very difficult for these agencies to employ settlement workers where many workers were sacrificed.
While the focus was Syrian refugees, refugees form other parts of the world continued to arrive, but they were not given the same treatment as the Syrian refugees. Even the Syrian refugees struggled to come to Canada and struggled when they got here as we are currently seeing with refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine.
Zahida who is herself comes from a family that had to flee Uganda 50 years ago, has done an incredble job of capturing the realities of the refugees and settlement workers. A Syrian refugee who arrived earlier is seen as a new settlement worker who is also struggling with the trauma of escaping imprisonment as politcal activist. Other settlement workers where either let go or promoted because of their education facing budget shortfall.
The Frontliners got a standing ovation on opening night for the insightful writing and incredible acting. It is running at the Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island until November 13th. Zahida Rehemtulla’s play the Wrong Bashir opens at the Firehall Theather in March.
The Frontliners was the recipient of the national 2021 Playwrights Guild of Canada RBC Emerging Playwright Award, Theatre BC’s 2020 Play of Special Merit Award, and was the runner-up for the prestigious 2021 National Voaden Prize in Playwriting.
The production includes an original score co-composed by Syrian-Iraqi musician and Oud player, Farouk Al-Sajee and multi-instrumentalist Ruby Singh. Set design by Megan Lane and lighting design/technical direction by Jamie Sweeney. Produced by Alexander Zonjic, Zahida Rahemtulla, and Maria Zarrillo. Stage management by Olivia Etey and Emily Wilcox. Dramaturgy by Davey Samuel Calderon. Direction by Tanya Mathivanan (Aenigma Theatre). Featuring Francis Dowlatabadi as Omar, Adrian Neblett as Yusuf, and Mehr Chahine as Nadia.
The first draft of The Frontliners was written at the inaugural Arts Club Emerging Playwrights’ Unit in 2019.
Imtiaz Popat 