WE ARE PROUD TO PRESENT A PRESENTATION ABOUT THE HERERO OF NAMIBIA, FORMERLY KNOWN AS SOUTHWEST AFRICA, FROM THE GERMAN SUDWESTAFRIKA, BETWEEN THE YEARS 1884-1915

This is devastating theatre.  This is work that initially welcomes you into that world of We-Know-This-Is-A-Show and then asks the question Do we, really?  Jackie Sibblies Drury, aided by an extraordinary cast and director has taken a microscope to one passage of time and cruelty in Africa and held it still long enough for combustion to occur.  The flames are not limited to nipping at the cast.

This presentation of a presentation takes us through a rehearsal in which actors are deciding how to tell a story of the genocide that took place in Africa – this one under German management – between 1884-1915.  Three black actors and three white (all with generic titles) and filled with intent take on the tale.  Problem is that their only first person source is a stack of letters.  So how to you tell a whole story based on 50% of the tale?

Back in 1894, when the Germans were in charge, they chose the Herero tribe to be the local-in-charge-folk.  1890 - The Germans switch their allegiance to the Nama tribe and give them all the Herero cattle.  1891 - we are back to the Herero.  1893 - the tribes war with one another.  1895 - Germans decide to build a railroad.  - 1896 the native Africans begin the physical labor on the railroad.  1896-1900 – things are not working well, even for those perky Germans.  1901 - Germans start to mess with the law.  Everything is eminent domain – cattle who wander onto German land are German property, as is everything else that they feel like taking.  Disagree or get caught and you are dead.  Look, the railroad isn’t working and someone must pay, right?  The Nama and then the Herero revolt, there is an extermination order and walls built to keep people (not the white ones) out in the desert.  The survivors are used as slave labor.  This lasts until 1915 – WWI – when those wonderful Brits take over.

And that is just the overview.

What follows is the actors picking apart the material and constructing the story they will tell.  They flow back and forth in time, pulling out personal myths and watching someone else claim them.  They thrust and parry.  They leap.  They crash and get up each time.  They are actors.  They are men and women.  They are black and white.  No element is off limits.  They are in this feet first.  And when they lose control of the moment they do not back away.  

It is this controlled loss of control that is always lurking in the corner of this piece, because the story they tell – this genocide in Namibia a century ago – has no logic, and is a fact.  When these actors pick up the land mine that is this tale, they are obligated to diffuse it at their own peril.

Where these actors go, so do we all.  It is a journey that is not comfortable.  It is epic.

WE ARE PROUD TO PRESENT A PRESENTATION ABOUT THE HERERO OF NAMIBIA, FORMERLY KNOWN AS SOUTHWEST AFRICA, FROM THE GERMAN SUDWESTAFRIKA, BETWEEN THE YEARS 1884-1915

By Jackie Sibblies Drury; directed by Eric Ting; sets by Mimi Lien; costumes by Toni-Leslie James; lighting by Lenore Doxsee; sound by Chris Giarmo; projections design by Jeff Larson; violence consultant, J. David Brimmer; choreography by Mr. Giarmo and the company; production manager, B D White; technical director, Newell Kring. Presented by Soho Rep, Sarah Benson, artistic director; Cynthia Flowers, executive director; in association with John Adrian Selzer. At Soho Rep, 46 Walker Street, TriBeCa, (212) 352-3101, sohorep.org. EXTENDED Through Dec. 16. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes.

WITH: Erin Gann (Actor 1/White Man), Grantham Coleman (Actor 2/Black Man), Jimmy Davis (Actor 3/Another White Man), Phillip James Brannon (Actor 3/Another Black Man), Lauren Blumenfeld (Actor 5/Sarah) and Quincy Tyler Bernstine (Actor 6/Black Woman).