As part of Assemble, the Citz is delighted to present a number of events which are part of Refugee Festival Scotland 2026.
The Strikers is a new play written by playwright Javad Daraei. The play explores labour, displacement, dignity, and resistance through stories shaped by lived experiences of survival and exile.
Synopsis
Strikers is a politically charged, absurdist play about a soldier falling apart under the pressure of war.
Javvo is forced into conscription. As conflict tears through him, his sense of self fragments. Different parts of his body -his Ears, Eyes, Brain, Mouth, Hands, Legs, Heart, and Mr.Penis- become separate characters, each with its own voice. Together they argue, remember, and try to survive inside a man who is losing himself.
The play unfolds in three episodes:
Convict to Be: Javvo is taken from his life and forced into war.
Convict to Bear: He endures torture as his fragmented self struggles to hold together.
Convict to Repeat: After the violence, he must learn to live again.
The work is informed by the writer’s own experience as a political prisoner tortured in Iran, and his father’s imprisonment and torture as a soldier in the Iran–Iraq war. But this is not autobiography, it is a collective cry.
Strikers asks you to witness, not to pity.
This event is delivered in partnership with U Belong Glasgow. It will include a work-in-progress reading of the play, performed by Sanjay Lago.
Supported by Scottish Refugee Council through the Refugee Festival Scotland’s Small Grants Programme
