Following are excerpts from several programs on a play staged by Syrian refugee women in Jordan, based on Euripides' "The Trojan Women." The video clips aired on Alaan TV, AmannetTV, and Orient News TV on December 17, 19, and 29, 2013.
Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV
Alaan TV (via the Internet), December 19, 2013:
Anchor: "Forty-eight women, Syrian refugees in Jordan, are participating in a play inspired by 'The Trojan Women,' written by a Greek playwright in 415 BCE. In this play, the refugee women recount their experiences during the war in Syria. This play was staged at Amman's National Center for Culture and Art." [...]
Rasha, a Syrian refugee participating in the play: "Syria has suffered ruin and destruction, and many people have lost relatives. I myself have lost my brothers and my father in Syria.
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"Similarly, in the play, Troy was attacked by the Greeks, who razed it to the ground, killed the men, and took the women as prisoners. What happens in Syria is very similar to what happened in Troy. In Syria, men were killed, women were raped, and homes were burnt down and destroyed with the people inside.
"There is a strong similarity between Troy and Syria today." [...]
AmmannetTV (via the Internet), December 19, 2013:
Ranim, a Syrian refugee participating in the play: "This is a very positive experience, and I'm very pleased with it for several reasons. This play helps us get things off our chest. Secondly, we are in a country that is not ours, and this breaks our monotonous daily routine."
Khoula, a Syrian refugee participating in the play: "This is the first time I ever set foot in a theater, and I'm doing it with a group of women from my country, Syria. We have become like a family. As soon as I heard that there is a play about the Syrian wound, and especially about Syrian women... It is the Syrian women who have suffered the most."
Assistant producer 'Otab 'Azzam: "I was very happy to watch them grow from day to day, and to see how their love for their work grows daily. The women just said that in four days it will all be over, and we will all go back to our countries. They cried and said: 'How will we go on with our lives without acting?' They loved this work very much. This feels great."
Narrator: "Syrian women will always be like the phoenix – they rise again from the ashes." [...]
Orient News TV (via the Internet), December 29, 2013:
Footage from the play
Refugee women: "Oh woe, what a spectacle! This is a painful sight for a mother. Oh people of Greece..."
Narrator: "This play is called 'The Trojan Women,' which tells the tale of the famous Greek war." [...]
