Fünf Uhr morgens (2024)   Lubna Abou Kheir
Yulianna Khomenko

Two women with a similar fate but two completely different outcomes. What does it do to a person who has been forced out of their country and becomes a refugee when they find that for some people who are also fleeing war other rules clearly apply?

Two women, one from Syria and one from Ukraine, meet in Switzerland. Both came seeking asylum, but their situations could not be more different. The decision to open borders and the labour market to Ukrainians was an overwhelming act of solidarity, but non-European asylum seekers do not receive the same support and are relegated to the status of second-class refugees. In a chance meeting over coffee, the two women talk and sing to and against each other until their languages and sounds combine in a surprisingly new melody.

The writer Lubna Abou Kheir came to Switzerland from Syria seeking asylum. In Fünf Uhr morgens (Five o’clock in the morning) she explores her feelings about this unequal treatment – and is shocked: She, who has played an active role in the defence of human rights up to now, observes in herself a growing unease at the treatment of an entire group – simply because of their origins. Where do these feelings come from? What happens to your own values and convictions when you are re-traumatised in a supposedly safe country like Switzerland?

with: Lubna Abou Kheir, Yulianna Khomenko
Director: Ursina Greuel
Text: Lubna Abou Kheir and Ursina Greuel
Music: Yulianna Khomenko and ensemble
Set: Cornelia Peter
Lighting and darbuka: Yahya Hazrouka
Oeil extérieur: Sibylle Burkart

sogar Produktion
Coproduction: Matterhorn Produktionen
in collaboration with the Zürcher Theaterspektakel