The title of this project refers to a common European people-smuggling practice whereby undocumented refugees are directed to trains that cross European borders at night and are told to find an empty bunk bed and hide until the crossing is completed. The play draws on HC. Krempels’ experience of finding a person in his sleeper while travelling through Europe. The performance takes this scenario as a starting point and, in experimental fashion, re-loops the events as a means of ‘testing’ other scenarios.
While a refugee is represented on stage, the performance concerns are less about Amena’s experience and more about the reactions and attitudes of the privileged European characters. As reviewer Sam Fulton notes, the use of alternative realities ‘become not just an exhibition of multiple situations but an active exploration of Western attitudes to immigration’ (2017). This is a departure from focusing on the refugee in performance. Instead, The Sleeper examines perceptions and attitudes towards refugees and the results of Western actions.
-excerpted from Dr. Suzanne Litte, in Performance, Resistance and Refugees (Routlege, 2022)
cealck | hc. krempels 