Comments (0) Best Political Statement - 2011
The Container
You don't get serious political theater around here much — the last we can remember were two productions of My Name Is Rachel Corrie, one of which showed in Denver a couple of years back, and one later in Boulder. But then The Container arrived at the 73rd Avenue Theatre Company. Staged in a large shipping container, this play packs actors and audience members together in claustrophobic half-darkness and tells the story of several desperate souls who have risked everything to flee the poverty and repression of their homelands and create new lives in the United Kingdom. The characters include Mariam, who saw her husband beheaded by the Taliban, and a mother and daughter fleeing the squalid conditions of a refugee camp in Somalia. In most countries, the conversation about immigration is narrow, filled with false assumptions, often racist; this company deserves kudos for showing how complex the issue really is and the profound moral dilemmas it poses.
