Fringe review: Black Fish uses immigration borders as stage
A Saskatoon play about a young woman trapped in airport interrogation channels the urgency of refugee stories through One Thousand and One Nights.
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Black Fish arrives at Ottawa Fringe as a deceptively simple premise: a young woman named Scheherazade is stuck in an airport interrogation room for 50 hours, fighting for a student visa to escape a war. Like the character in One Thousand and One Nights, she must tell her story to survive.
The play, created by Sima Sheibani, strips away specifics intentionally. Which war? Which country? Those blanks are the point — the story becomes universal. A refugee trying to reach safety. An immigration officer slowly falling apart, played by Ohad Winkler, who once escaped his own war 30 years earlier on a student visa, leaving behind the woman he loved.
The reviewer found the play "deeply human, unsettling, poetic, and unforgettable." It's built for audiences drawn to immigration stories, to the gap between old countries and new ones, to the question of who gets to belong where.
Black Fish plays at Studio 1201 until June 28. Tickets are $14 plus service fees online, at the Fringe box office at 67 Nicholas Street, and at satellite boxes at 3 Daly Avenue and 333 King Edward Avenue.