VCUarts Theatre production portrays refugee experience

Daijah Hinmon, Contributing Writer 

VCUarts Theatre presents “Anon(ymous),” a contemporary twist on the epic poem “Odyssey” by the Greek poet Homer, on Feb. 22 through 25 at the W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts. 

“Anon(ymous)” is a stage play written by playwright Naomi Iizuka about the journey Anon, a young refugee, faces when he is separated from his mother during their travel to the U.S. and the battles he goes through to find home, according to the VCUarts website.

The play strives to bring attention to the struggles refugees and their families experience and to show this issue is still relevant today, according to the VCUarts website.

The most recent UN Refugee Agency Global Trends Report shows that over 100 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced from their homes due to persecution, conflict and violence in 2023, according to the VCUarts website.

Putting a name or face to the number of refugees we see is tough, said Aidan Campbell, the actor who plays Anon. 

“I think a lot of what this play is doing is exactly that,” Campbell said. “It’s putting a face and a name to these real people that go through these horrible things and it’s not just the horrible things that they’ve gone on through that make them who they are — it’s everything that makes everyone who they are.”

He was able to learn a great deal from his time playing Anon, as the role gives him the chance to dig into the deeper parts of being human, according to Campbell. 

“This play definitely has the most real-world application over any other show I’ve done,” Campbell said.

Campbell said he hopes the audience acknowledges the importance of hearing these individual refugee stories because they are real people who deserve so much more.

It was important to have conversations with the actors to help with the research process so she could incorporate the actors’ family history or traditions into the costumes if possible, said Tallie Pugh, the costume designer for “Anon(ymous).”

Taking the time to go through a large amount of research and getting background knowledge about different people and cultures was essential for her to create costumes that would tell the story effectively, Pugh said.

“There was a lot of research done, specifically with cultural wear and things like that, or some of the actors and where they’re from and tying that into where this person is from, whatever country that actor may or may not have a cultural tie to,” Pugh said.

When the director of “Anon(ymous),” Chelsea Burke, was asked to come back and work on this project after directing “I and You” by Lauren Gunderson in 2021 for VCUarts Theatre, she read the story of “Anon(ymous),” and fell in love with the show, she said. 

“Theater is very much a collaborative art,” Burke said. “It’s my job as a director to identify what I think are important initially and give the designers and the actors kind of a jumping off point.”

When the team is able to build ideas off of one another, it is easier to make those decisions when preparing for the play, Burke said. 

“I think the most important thing when deciding what direction to take is to look at the central issues of the play and then build the central desires of your main character, how they go through that and find creative ways to express that to the audience,” Burke said.

Some of the topics she and the team discussed for the play were memory, trauma, storytelling and the feeling of home, Burke said. 

While performing moments that are traumatic or when something is being done to them, it was essential that the team was taking care of one another as performers, but also as people outside of the play, Burke said. 

“The biggest challenge is ensuring that we are telling that story with weight and honesty while not having people take that home with them,” Burke said.