Christy Lefteri’s bestseller The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a powerful story but does it make good theatre? Her 2019 novel, inspired by two summers spent working in a refugee camp in Athens, has now been adapted by Nesrin Alrefaai and Matthew Spangler. The tale of beekeeper Nuri and his wife Afra’s nightmarish journey from Syria to England may be harrowing in its components but Miranda Cromwell’s touring production doesn’t do enough to support the script’s gut-wrenching chronology; it feels formulaic and lacks finesse.
The dialogue is often rapid and expressive. We dart from Nuri’s once blissful life to the crowded camps of Greece and then on to meetings with uncaring immigration officers on British shores. The words paint a graphic, panoramic portrait of his shattered and traumatised mind. Memory, illusions and reality become one, with voices from his past bleeding into his present. As Nuri, Alfred Clay is aptly emotionally unavailable – when his wife (Roxy Faridany) tries to touch him, we feel her pain as he slowly backs away. With expert sound design by Tingying Dong, Nuri’s inner thoughts become glaring.
