Queens of Syria, Young Vic, review: 'a compelling and humbling show' made by refugees

An all-female cast of thirteen Syrian refugees takes to the stage for this remarkable venture. They weave their own personal stories into an eloquent modern re-working of an ancient text -- Euripides' Women of Troy (415 BC) with its eponymous captives waiting to shipped from the sacked city into slavery.

First staged in Jordan in 2013, Queens of Syria has already been the subject of an award-winning documentary by Yasmin Fedda about a process that started off as a drama therapy workshop in Amman. The end result is an inspiring example of how the benefits of group endeavour and the encounter with a great classical anti-war play have given these women the confidence to speak out – both in terms of the parallels with their own traumatic experiences and in protest at the routine prejudices nursed against refugees.

In Zoe Lafferty's intense production, the cast sometimes intones chorally but mostly the piece is intent on emphasising how this worst humanitarian crisis since the Second World War, with 4 million Syrians having fled the country, is suffered by individuals who have their own singular reasons for identifying with Andromache or Cassandra. Some of performers are required to recall harrowing personal events and you can feel them (Reham Alkahim, especially) bravely steeling themselves to recount their stories – of a mother, say, kidnapped when she goes to meet her son's kidnappers and then ransomed only to discover that they had already butchered him. Or the nightmare of childbirth in a war-zone, and being driven into exile shortly thereafter with a sick baby.

But the piercing homesickness of life in exile makes itself felt perhaps even more powerfully, as we hear in letters to family members with evocative touches that summon up, say, the distinctive scent of a Damascus dawn. The women reveal the sentimental objects (picture of a brother; coffee pot; offspring's awards certificates) they took into exile and resolve that their children will rebuild Syria in contrast to Troy which, as they are all too uneasily aware, was obliterated.

Presented mostly in Arabic (with surtitles), the piece does have flashes of English – as, for example, when they satirise the patronising requests and questions asked of refugees (“Tell us about your journey”, “How come you have a smart phone?”). This sequence leads to the riposte: “do I have to be ashamed because there's a civil war now in my country?” And to the angry, confrontational “how did killing people people become normal – shame on you.”

It's a compelling - and humbling - show.

Queens of Syria is at the Young Vic till 9 July, then tours to Oxford, Brighton, Liverpool, Leeds, Edinburgh and Durham before a West End gala performance at the New London Theatre, 24 July