On the surface, Elif (a spirited and skilled performance by Sara Hazemi), the central character in Sami Ibrahim’s allegory cum fable, A Sudden Violent Burst Of Rain, lives an idyllic rural lifestyle. Day after day she shears sheep, then turns the wool into clouds that bring rain to every corner of the green and pleasant island on which she lives. No work means no rain, so the girl is pretty important in the great scheme of things.
But there is a problem. Back when Elif arrived on her isle, fleeing war and persecution in a far distant motherland, she neglected to register as one of the King’s subjects. Her sinister landowner boss, cognisant of the teenager’s status as illegal immigrant, overworks and underpays her. A fleeting romance with the landowner’s son (Samuel Tracy, who is great in several ensemble turns) sees her pregnant. Accompanied by infant daughter Ellen, who is born quite literally from deep in the island earth, she heads for the gleaming and prosperous capital city. Her quest? To seek the King’s approval for legal settlement for herself and her daughter. Will she gain the fairy-tale ending she seeks? An uncaring bureaucracy and hostile environment stand in her way. What is at stake is a simple place to call home.
A Sudden Violent Burst Of Rain is most obviously an indictment of the human cost of the UK immigration system, particularly its impact on asylum-seekers and their off-spring. The play is also a comment on the power of storytelling and fable-making as a means of communicating harsh truths to children. Sooner or later, of course, kids come to realise the reality of the world around them. This fable, part narration and part dialogue, gets noticeably darker and more lifelike as the rebellious and angry teenage Ellen (a tremendously charismatic Princess Khumalo) comes to realise the precariousness of the family’s situation.
Opinions will vary as to whether portraying asylum-seekers as fairy-tale characters adds much to the debate about immigration. On the one hand A Sudden Violent Burst Of Rain demands that its audience contemplates, with brutal clarity, the likelihood of a real life fairy-tale ending for the personalities it describes. As a reminder that there are real lives at stake in every channel crossing this is a work with value.
On the other hand, it is hard to feel emotionally engaged with someone who makes clouds out of shearing sheep, however poetic and lyrical the imagery Hafesji brings us. The effect of the allegorical structure is to distance us from the lives of vulnerable individuals, rather than bring us closer. Elif’s third act diatribe against British imperial history, legitimate polemic though it may be, feels jarringly out of place in a fairy-story that is essentially about two people looking for safety.
Writer: Sami Ibrahim,
Director: Yasmin Hafesji
21 October 2022
Duration: 75 minutes. No interval.
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