Four Months, 5,000 Miles: A Refugee Puppet Looks for Home

In “The Walk,” a 12-foot tall, 9-year-old Syrian girl named Amal trekked from Turkey to Britain to find her mother. In a politically divided continent, were any minds changed?

LONDON — A dozen puppeteers were crouched in a rehearsal room here studying the every move of a cheeky eight-year-old girl named Tamara, who was trying to steal a bright pink soccer ball from the middle of the floor.

Tamara looked nervous and kept glancing over her shoulder, as if to make sure no one was behind her. Then, suddenly, she ran straight for the ball, scooped it up in her arms and ran off.

Amir Nizar Zuabi, a Palestinian theater director and Tamara’s father, seemed pleased. “See, everything she does is with urgency,” he told the puppeteers in June. “Everything is life and death.”