The Scar Test at Villanova Theatre

Villanova Theatre will present The Scar Test by the award-winning Palestinian-Irish playwright Hannah Khalil, directed by Claire Moyer, and streaming MARCH 25 - APRIL 4. Tickets are free with a suggested donation of $10. This incendiary tale centering on the plight of asylum seekers in the United Kingdom is the third virtual production of Villanova's 2020-2021 season.

Khalil, whose creative accomplishments span from theatre to film to radio, was selected as the 2021 Charles A. Heimbold Jr. Chair of Irish Studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Villanova University. For the past two decades, this visiting writer-in-residence program has offered graduate and undergraduate students the enriching experience of a close classroom experience with Ireland's finest poets, novelists, playwrights and screenwriters.

Fiercely felt and fearlessly told, The Scar Test centers on a cohort of asylum seekers who find themselves stuck in limbo, stripped of their privacy, and isolated a world away from the lives they used to know. Based on two years of interviews with detainees, Khalil's groundbreaking play offers a powerful and unflinching snapshot of life inside England's migrant detention system. For US audiences, the timely, controversial drama also mirrors our nation's fraught and fractured immigration system. Filmed with extensive safety protocols in place - including masks and social distancing - Villanova's virtual production explores themes of alienation, isolation, and the need for connection that will resonate with audiences as we pass the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an interview with The Guardian, Khalil said "there are brilliant documentaries about Yarl's Wood and detention, but with theatre you can get into people's hearts in a more visceral way." More like a prison than a refuge, Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Center is notoriously impenetrable. Khalil herself was only able to gain inside access by reaching out to charities that allowed her to befriend and connect with detainees directly. Her eye-opening journalistic approach brings to light the plight of asylum seekers by uplifting their voices and dignifying their experiences.

According to Khalil, she chose the title The Scar Test in reference to a procedure used to determine whether detainees have undergone torture in their home countries. UK laws dictate that survivors of torture cannot be held at detention centers such as Yarl's Wood. However, this superficial physical test does not account for the non-physical scars that torture and trauma leave on their victims, and as a result, vulnerable people are further harmed by the experience of detention and oppr