If Only the Dead Could Listen, by Gëzim Alpion
For Immediate Release
July 9, 2008 (Chapel Hill, NC, USA) – How do Albanian asylum seekers live in the United Kingdom? Some people in Britain would claim that asylum seekers and refugees live comfortably on the social services extended to them. If Only the Dead Could Listen, a shocking and politically incorrect new play by Dr Gëzim Alpion, disturbs that vision. The drama follows the saga of Leka, an asylum-seeker who finds himself entangled in the British legal system one day during a trip to Harrods.
Alpion’s second play If Only the Dead Could Listen has already disturbed British audiences with its black humor and tragedy. The public finds itself succumbing to emotional twists and turns as the main character’s emotions metamorphose through states of anger, patriotism, bereavement, aggression, and alienation. The play depicts experiences universally faced by refugees as they reluctantly uproot themselves from their homeland and find themselves taxed by personal and social trials in a foreign place.