Welcome to ‘The Jungle’

Here in America, despite the hysteria whipped up in the weeks leading up to the November midterm elections, there was no influx of migrants from the south.

In other words, nothing like what happened a few years ago, when hundreds of thousands refugees from the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa arrived in Europe. There’s a new play about that migrant crisis called “The Jungle” — which was the nickname of the notorious, now defunct, migrant camp in Calais, France.

It’s where thousands of refugees gathered before attempting to cross the Channel to the U.K. to try to seek asylum. The camp is the setting for this play.
 
In its production at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, “The Jungle” puts the audience inside the action, everyone seated in a replica of the Afghan restaurant that served as the real-life camp’s unofficial town center.