Refugees' plight poignantly portrayed

On the fifth anniversary of the Syrian civil war, this silent play tells the story of Ahmad, a young man who escapes his war-torn village in an unnamed Arab country and goes to Europe in a rubber boat. ″If Scheherazade were still alive, instead of telling stories for one thousand and one nights, she would have taken one of the rubber boats to Europe,″ the performer, playwright and director Mahmoud Hourani says with a bitter smile. ″Like many others, she would have tried to escape the Middle East and seek refuge somewhere else.″