A lot is going on in Ostan, a play centred on the Iraqi Rebin (Ojan Genc) stuck ten years in the UK immigration system, working illegally at a UK car wash and certain it would be dangerous to return to Iraq.
His parents worked for the regime of Saddam Hussain making him a marked man to those that subsequently took over, so what better place to flee than the UK, the country which invaded Iraq causing his problems.
The trouble is, when he escaped the new regime of Iraq, which he mentions was even killing Saddam’s former cleaners, he didn't hang about to discuss it formally with the English gents who were in any case too busy looting to be bothered with terrified people fleeing death.
To compound his crime of arriving by unorthodox means, he had a habit of trying to be honest with the authorities (apart from the fact that he is working). Thus ten years on, he is still waiting for leave to remain.
At the economically declining car wash, which barely gets any customers and is competitively beaten by the Albanians down the road who charge a pound less per wash, he supervises the newbie, Gorkem (Serkan Avlik), who is also seeking asylum, only taking the precaution of telling lots of lies about his circumstances.
Rebin’s manager, Destan (Mohsen Ghaffari), is up to dubious ways of earning money from the owner of the carwash, Shapur (Dana Haqjoo), who is busy getting drivers to ship migrants into the country via the boot of their car. One of the people he recruits is the only non-Kurdish connected character, Noah (El Anthon).
Rebin and Noah seem to be video game mates, and to illustrate this, we have a large screen above the traverse stage displaying soldiers shooting people. I’m sure that feels very nostalgic for Rebin. Unfortunately for the rest of us, it can be very distracting from the dialogue of other characters taking place at the same time, even if that dialogue sometimes occurs in a non-English language many of us don’t understand. But then occasionally, they also have a couple of simultaneous disconnected conversations, perhaps to test our concentration.
Although there is lots of topical stuff in this play, much of it takes place offstage, from beatings to smuggling, while the events onstage tend to be unfocused beyond the sad, passive character Rebin, who never really has much beyond slight conversations with the others. Despite this, he does seem to know their secrets, for instance, alluding to Noah’s secret life by reference to a crime series.
The play was probably wanting to be a crime series. It spends most of the plot giving us clues to the adventures offstage, while onstage, peculiar conversations and odd scenes make us wonder what is going on, from the trivial issue of why Noah arrives at the car wash wearing just a dressing gown and socks, to what we are missing when they suddenly talk in a non-English language.
The plot is unclear and undeveloped, the characters are slight and the dialogue is often unfocused. There is a good chance audiences will lose their way in the story despite the cascade of revelations in the last ten minutes. The play touches on important issues with compassion, but fails to deliver anything significant.