How To Break Out of a Detention Centre at Riverside Studios

*AD – this experience was gifted to our family for this post. All opinions, as always, are our own.

Our second play at Riverside Studios was so much different from our first. We went to see How to Break Out of a Detention Centre, a more emotional and intense performance about immigration camps in the United Kingdom. This show is based on real stories from women who have been in these detention centres, showcasing what has happened to them.

Inside the detention centre, there are two main characters that we meet; Faiza who is an immigrant from Sudan. Her husband beat her and she is not fully taken in the fact that she had miscarried her baby. She clearly needs a doctor and some help, but there just isn’t any real help to be provided. Maria is an immigrant from Romania, who seemed to have been in France previously. She was homeless and has lost access to her children who all have been put into foster care. She is not able to really contact and communicate with her solicitor, she isn’t able to read English to understand the letters she is getting, and without this proper help is obviously not going to be able to see her children again. There isn’t much background for these characters given, and they are not able to communicate with each other much, as they speak different languages.

There is a lot of confusion and isolation displayed in How to Break Out of a Detention Centre. The detention centre doesn’t just focus on these two immigrants, but there are also aspects of the lives of the people who work there too. A doctor that works there, named Elena, is a Romanian immigrant that is very unsympathetic to anyone in the centre, while Kelly, a white, well spoken guard seems more passionate but unable to help. So much of the performance flickers between these lives, with actors changing outfits, wigs, and accents so that they fit these roles.

Much of How to Break Out of a Detention Centre also uses technology that I have not seen in other plays. There is a giant projector at the background, which translates what people are saying into English. Spoken word and thoughts are done through microphones at the side of the stage, acting sometimes like inner monologues or chants. There is a camera recorder that is able to project what it sees onto the background, giving empathise onto specific moments and characters. There are moments when the floor is used to symbolise self harm, suicide, and how stuck everyone is feeling, through paint and through drawing. It’s all a lot to take in, and then entire show feels intense.

Within that intensity, there is a sort of other character, who has just as much screen time as the rest so to speak. A giant, bleeding head of a man appears at the back, as a projection, often talking to Faiza. It’s unclear who this is, why they are there, or what relevance they have to the story. I do wish more light was shed on them, and we could understand why they were there. The face did say they stole something, everything they love is gone, and so they are being held there – but this was a women’s detention centre, and there doesn’t seem to be a real place for them. When Faiza is found talking to this person, she is reported as talking to herself by the other inmate, further showing he is not real.

How to Break Out of a Detention Centre is a performance that is important. It shows nitty and gritty aspects of detention centres, in a way that doesn’t sugar coat them. I do wish there was more background for what is going on, but feel that what these people are showcasing, is very important.

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!