According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, 110 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced from their homes due to persecution, conflict, and violence in 2023. At year end, the estimated number of refugees in the world was nearly 36 million.
As overwhelming as those numbers are, they tend to flatten the experience of being a refugee instead of providing any insight, says Aidan Campbell, who stars as the lead character, Anon, in Virginia Commonwealth University’s upcoming production, “Anon(ymous).”
“You hear that number and you think it’s just one big mass of people instead of thinking that each refugee is a person,” Campbell says. “I try to think about each person and think, what’s their favorite movie? What’s their favorite cereal? There’s so much to every person that a number can’t capture.”
In the play, Anon and his mother, Nemasani, have escaped on a boat from an unnamed, war-torn country. They are separated at sea during a storm and Anon is left trying to find a new home while encountering ghosts, a goddess and a murderous one-eyed butcher.
The story includes a chorus of refugees and it’s made clear that any one of them could tell a tale as full of adventures and tragedies.
“It’s important to understand that each one of these people has a story to be told,” Campbell says. “They each have their own favorite cereal and their own favorite movie.”
Naomi Iizuka, who wrote “Anon(ymous),” loosely based the story on Homer’s “Odyssey.” Nemasani ends up working in a sewing factory for a character named Yuri Mackus, based on Eurymachus, and that butcher Anon runs into bears a striking resemblance to a certain mythical Cyclops.
For Campbell, who read The Odyssey his freshman year in high school, the connections added a layer of fun to rehearsing the show. “I thought The Odyssey was so fucking cool,” he says. “It’s like the biggest story ever.”
“Something I’ve probably done to an annoying amount has been saying things like, ‘Oh, I see how Calista in the play relates to Calypso in the poem.’ Drawing the parallels has made it really easy to contextualize things and figure out some of the themes.”
While only a sophomore at VCU, Campbell has been on a trajectory of increasing visibility and bigger roles. After working in a student production his freshman year, he started doing improv in a group called “To What End” and now performs as part of a sketch group called “Don’t Let Them In.”
Last fall, he made his VCU mainstage debut in “Let the Right One In,” playing Micke. And he’s already working on his first film project, called “The Gallery,” where he’ll also play the lead character. It’s being put together by local directing luminary, Chelsea Burke, who is also directing “Anon(ymous).”
“I adore [Aidan],” says Burke. “This is a huge show for him to carry on his shoulders. But he is so lovely and so smart and I know he’s going to be fine.”
Burke echoes Campbell’s insights on how the play helps people see the reality of being a refugee. “It kind of zooms in from the macro to the micro and humanizes the experience,” she says. “It looks at the hostility [refugees] face, whether it is sinister or seems mundane. It’s about the use of power against people who don’t have agency.”
“Ultimately, it’s about finding a tether to home and finding that agency, taking back your power and telling your own story.”
Campbell stresses that it’s also a fun show. “Some of the themes are tragic,” he says “But there are a lot of moments that are very light-hearted and sweet and funny and absurd. There’s a ton of fights and movement pieces that are really cool.”
“More than anything, it’s a show that seems destined to be done at this time,” he says. “So people can understand the atrocities and what goes on when people are displaced.”
“Anon(ymous)” is playing from Feb. 22 through Feb. 25 at VCU’s W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts, 922 Park Ave. Tickets and information available at https://arts.vcu.edu/event/anonymous/.
