ROMEO and JULIET in Rwanda: Resilience in the Face of Tragedy By James Goodwin Rice Senior Lecturer of Theater Dartmouth College The Youth Bridge Global/Ishyo Arts Center co-production of Romeo and Juliet, the first-ever production of a Shakespeare play in all Rwanda*, opened on Saturday, August 3rd in the auditorium of the SOS Children’s Villages School. It played to a surprising variety of enthusiastic audiences in a total of four venues including the SOS School and Kimisagara Youth Center in Kigali, and in two cities south of the capital, the Ahazaza Center in Muhanga, and in Butare, the Imberabyombi Center. While the attendance was somewhat disappointing for several performances, our team was delighted by both the genuine excitement the actors generated in all their audiences, and the remarkable commitment the actors made to the text, and the level of “playing the play” they accomplished throughout the run. Honestly, there were many moments in every performance that were thrilling; actors pitching themselves into the urgency of the circumstances and speaking the text with unrestrained passion. Ensemble Interestingly, we observed that our African audiences were very “participatory” in a way that evoked the atmosphere of an Elizabethan performance—in some instances groundlings meandering around below the stage jockeying for a better view; a constant chatter and banter among audience members always in animated vocal response to the events in the play. Often audience members spoke directly to the actors. Surprisingly, such responses were highly energizing to the players. Far from experiencing it as rude or inappropriate audience behavior, the actors rose to and swam in the interaction; they played with fierce concentration and commitment to their physical and vocal lives. Each audience was different and the actors learned what it means to adjust to the demands of playing in different spaces with different audiences responses. The task of producing such a demanding play in Africa confronted the team with some daunting challenges: most participants (university student between ages of 18-24) were entirely inexperienced as actors and with stagecraft; the issue of language in that the play was to be produced in three languages (60% percent Kinyarwandan, the local language, and 20% in French and Shakespeare’s text, respectively; the plan to frame the play in a Rwandan context—an African Romeo and Juliet—with none of the directing team being African; the gaps in language and cultural expectations that often caused delays and necessary (though always fruitful) discussions; the need to feed and transport the company daily from far ends of the city; the need to honor and respect the privacy and stories of every participant, all of whom lost family members in the genocide; and finally, given all the above, adjusting to a very tight and limited rehearsal period. As we entered technical rehearsals and the production began to stagger to its feet, we realized that many (many) moving parts had to find much more precision before we had a show. For example, in the tech-dress rehearsal before opening night, I stopped counting missed entrances at ten, and entirely skipped scenes at two! But, as in the dictum “you get the play up in the time you have,” leaders emerged in the cast who took on the responsibility of helping less experienced players understand the importance of concentrating on, and following the play backstage, making entrances and exits with intention, playing at a high energy level, and the importance of each person—no matter the size of the part—to supporting one another and ensemble playing. Perhaps the most valuable lesson learned by our company is the notion of process: from auditions to closing performance there is an arc of creating and learning. It takes sacrifice and courage to make a commitment to such a process. The project is greater than any individual and can only really succeed when all are prepared to make such a commitment. Of course Andrew Garrod’s choice to bring R&J to Rwanda was deliberate. Shortly before the 2012 Dartmouth Commencement, in a serendipitous meeting at a dinner honoring Dartmouth retirees and recipients of honorary doctorates, Andrew met Dr. Agnes Binawaho, the Rwandan Minister of Health. As they became acquainted, Andrew explained that his research and greatest interest is to produce Shakespeare with youths from the disparate groups of former war zones and sites of genocide. Dr. Binawaho’s response was that he had to come to Rwanda and the play that he must produce was Romeo and Juliet. The story of Romeo and Juliet and of two families—two tribes—long acrimonious with hate and violence towards one another that concludes in reconciliation only after the needless, tragic deaths of the youths in the play, can be viewed as an theatrical metaphor for the events of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The memory of a very complex decades-long sequence of events that led to the massacre of as many as one million people in fewer than one hundred days, is ever present in subtle, and not-so-subtle, ways. As Clovis who played Benvolio stated in a company meeting, “We are all victims; everyone one of us in this country is a victim.” A conversation about the meaning of reconciliation has been ongoing since our arrival in Rwanda. How do we as westerners comprehend the meaning that every member of our cast and crew has had to confront a lifelong reality that a parent, grandparent(s), siblings, and extended family members were slain in the genocide? How do we confront the knowledge (or sight of) the rape of a mother, an aunt, a sister, or even oneself? How does one fathom and manage the reality that a father, or an uncle, was among the genocidaires? How as westerners do we presume to approach the notion of reconciliation--with actual victims--through the lens of Romeo and Juliet? Our strategy was to concentrate on the text, on the play, and to encourage actors to use their personal experiences to fuel and voice the experience of their characters. As stories and experiences came to the surface, we tried to concentrate them into the voice of the play. Looking back on an extraordinary eight weeks in Kigali, Rwanda, what are we as a team taking away? For me, certainly there is a satisfaction that many in our cast became very excited about the experience of performing, of going far beyond what they considered personal limitations. It’s quite exceptional to watch a young person step into full empowerment, commitment and command of a character—often in three languages during the course of the play! Certainly we are taking away an immense respect for the resiliency of the people in a country that now seems full of hope and promise. The new generation of Rwandans, as populated by our cast and crew, are excited to create possibility, an opportunity for expression through teaching, healing, and the arts in a country that struggles to look beyond the immeasurable pain and loss in it recent history. *Carole Karamera: Rwandan actress, Artistic Director of Ishyo Arts Center, and Producer of Romeo and Juliet in Kigali
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 21:40:46 +0000
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