It is, by virtue, impossible to imagine the unimaginable.
Every earth-shattering horror that’s ever crossed your mind will have been dismissed as an intrusive flight of fancy; as something that ‘doesn’t happen to people like you’. Not to normal people, with normal homes, and normal families.
Well, sometimes, it does. And it’s this heart-in-your-mouth realisation that’s at the core of The Beekeeper of Aleppo‘s emotional pull.
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By the very nature of its subject matter, there’s a darkness at the heart of The Beekeeper of Aleppo.
When Nuri, a beekeeper, and his wife, Afra, see their entire world destroyed by war, they are forced to escape. Over the course of the performance – which has been beautifully adapted from Christy Lefteri’s bestselling novel by the team behind the international stage sensation The Kite Runner – the observee is guided tenderly through the couple’s pain, anguish, and despair at the destruction of the life they once led; and, crucially, through their journey to find each other once more.
It’s often harrowing and never anything less than thought-provoking – but ultimately, it’s a story of human connection.
It’s a tale of tragedy, but also one of courage – and crucially, of the importance of love in the face of incomprehensible trauma. And ultimately, it’s hard to leave the theatre with anything less than hope for the future of humanity – for, if one is able to remember something as fragile as love in the face of something so mortally terrible, can the world really be such a dark place?
So, if you ask us, you’d be a fool to miss out on The Beekeeper of Aleppo. It may not be a light-hearted evening at the theatre; but, in these times, we feel that we could all use a beacon of hope.
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