Outsiders is a play inspired and based on Camus’s novel The Stranger ,or L’Etranger. The play focuses on two of the book’s background characters, Marie and Sumaya. Here we see their untold stories and discover their judgments on the events that take place. Set in Algeria before its independence from France, we see two characters experiencing the same grief and hating each other for it.

Marie, played by Lou Broadbent, is a young French woman, naïve to the world around her and unwilling to understand the “Arabs” (she will not speak of them by name) in the country she was born. As Sumaya, Sara Sadeghi plays a bitter and defeated Algerian woman who has resorted to prostitution rather than cripple herself in a manual labour job that she has painstakingly watched her grandma do for years. Neither woman understands the other, and with a refusal to understand comes tragedy. Neither woman can find it in themselves to do anything but blame the other’s culture, beliefs and lifestyle.

The play centres on the murder of Sumaya’s brother. Marie’s fiancé has been found guilty of premeditated murder and has been executed. When the play begins both men are already dead. Marie in her naïvety defends her fiancé’s honour, declaring him innocent as “the Arab” supposedly threatened him with a knife. Sumaya cannot understand Marie’s naïvety and is angered and exasperated that her brother is seen by no-one, not the French court nor Marie, as anything but the word “Arab”. We see a clash of cultures. Both women feel helpless in and infuriated by the country they both call home. Neither believes the other belongs in Algeria.

This local fight over land is something that a twenty-first century audience recognises all too well, and with the recent migrant crisis director Fraser Corfield has hit on a hot topic of discussion. This poignant play shows us the consequences of a refusal to accept change, a refusal to accept people – a refusal to accept.

Broadbent and Sadeghi powerfully bring this two-hander to life. The huge contrast of characters works effectively to highlight the distinctions in class, culture and disposition. Broadbent gives a wonderfully varied performance, gaining sympathy for her naïvety and misunderstanding of the evil happening around her. Sadeghi gives a strong and empowered performance of a young woman fighting the injustice of her people, and is able to convey the cruel life she has endured successfully without us having seen it on stage. However, the bitterness in Sadeghi’s performance, though justified for her character, does however come across as arrogant, making it hard for an audience to warm to her character. I found myself wanting her to show some vulnerability, as Sumaya is the character we ultimately want to sympathise with.

Outsiders played at the Cast Theatre, Doncaster until 25 September. For more information, see the Cast Theastre website.