Ali is a smuggler of people. He stands in the almost-dark of a refugee camp, his face lit by a flashlight, talking to Beth, a UK aid worker.

She's angry. She thinks it’s people like Ali who are the reason this makeshift, tent-and-board city sprang up on the northern coast of France. People are dying and suffering because he has offered  them the small chance that they could seek asylum in the UK. If there were no smugglers - there would be no camp. No death. People would just accept help from France.

No, he responds. That's not it at all.

"Once I was the only way a man could ever dream of arriving on your shore," he tells her. "Now, he opens the map on his phone, zooms out, and thinks, ‘It’s not too far, it’s close enough to walk’. And he sets off on the journey of his life. It is not about this border. It’s the border in here." He taps his head. "And that is gone now."

Technology, Ali says, has made the world smaller for everyone, not just Westerners. Those who suffer  under war or other violence in their home countries can now imagine their lives somewhere else. They can measure out the steps on a digital map. They can watch  videos of far-off landmarks and imagine walking there; of people in distant places and picture themselves as neighbors.

"The Jungle" is based on a real place - a refugee camp in the port town of Calais, France, next to a highway with  large trucks bringing goods (and hidden people) from Continental Europe to England. From 2015 to 2016, people who’d made perilous journeys from all over Africa and the Middle East built an improvised city of sorts  out of tents, plastic tarps and scraps of wood. They constructed housing, churches, restaurants, even a theater. The theater - which was run by the playwrights of this piece, Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson - was called “Good Chance,” because that's what the refugees said to themselves. Maybe today was the day they had a good chance of finally making it to Britain; the day they got on the right truck, one that wouldn't be stopped by police, one that was safe enough so as not to kill them along the way.

There are various reasons why some refugees prefer to apply for asylum in the UK over France. They may already speak English and have family connections in Britain, which can provide a valuable network for starting a new life in a strange country, for example. Also, their laws used to be more generous to immigrants, although now asylum seekers aren’t typically permitted to work in the UK. Instead, they receive housing and a small cash allowance while their cases are being decided

Whatever the reason for choosing Britain, the people in the camp spent much of their time waiting - and strategizing. The St. Ann's production, which was originally staged at the Young Vic in London, is set within a re-creation of a camp restaurant, with dirt floors and long tables made of wood, with catsup centerpieces. The actors move about  the audience - when they celebrate someone's birthday, they do flips down a catwalk in the center.

And yes, there is celebrating. Though the story itself is about the resident’s efforts to halt  the destruction of the camp by the French authorities, the play is careful to illustrate the friendships that are formed  there, as well as show how the refugees create a home - by having art and music and religion and shared meals, but also by making their own, successful system of representational and consensual government. Though the U.S. is barely mentioned, in a way the camp we see on stage is the dream of America - a mix of peoples from all over the world who try to achieve something together while living in peace.

 But "The Jungle" is not a civics lesson - or at least, that's not why it's so successful. This is riveting theater, with high stakes and complex characters. They are portrayed both with clear-eyed honesty (one of the most beloved refugees is a thief; another threatens others with a gun) and with warm sympathy. Even the smugglers like Ali have reasons for doing what they do. All any of them want is to have a safe home, to build families and community, without letting a border stand in their way.

The Jungle, by Joe Murphy & Joe Robertson, directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, at St. Ann's Warehouse through Jan. 27.