Red Hills
About the show
Inside 20,000 square feet of vacant downtown office space, the pioneering site-specific company En Garde Arts presents a transportive new work asking: who has the right to tell a story and why?
... Read more'Red Hills' invites audiences to travel from an NGO presentation by David Zosia, American author and self-proclaimed expert on Rwandan history, to the fields of Rwanda to meet God’s Blessing, a Rwandan Tour guide. Travel back to 1994 and experience these two men from vastly different cultures as they relive the events of their first meeting during the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. A collaboration between similarly diverse playwrights, Ugandan Asiimwe Deborah Kawe and American Sean Christopher Lewis, 'Red Hills' invites you to bear witness as two men face long-buried memories, confront ghosts of their pasts, and question who owns history.
“A clever, site-responsive play...An intelligent work of theater and ultimately a reassuring one...What Ms. Pearl’s canny direction and the evocative design can only somewhat disguise is the conventional structure of the piece...The problem isn’t that this is a hopeful ending, but that it’s an ending that elides some of the more uncomfortable questions about who gets to own pain, who gets to profit from it, what it means that hate has birthed a tourism industry.” Full Review
"An honest conversation, full of laughter and heartache, between unlikely companions in misery. The seamless collaboration of two authors elevates the monologue of a privileged white man and returns the voice to those whose story it is in the first place...Ssenjovu’s performance is lively and forceful, and watching him savor Kawe’s tart jokes is very refreshing. The effect is strengthened by the contrast of horrifying stories of genocide in which his entire family perished." Full Review
“A reworking of Lewis’ solo memory play ‘Dogs of Rwanda’...Kawe maintains Lewis’ basic plot but alters the conception for two characters...Lacks a compelling spine and earlier presentational additions don’t really add much...Never becomes very compelling...Writing is slack, rudimentary and persistently not very clear. The audience is often directly engaged to react...'Red Hills' nobly seeks to dramatize a notable and tragic historical event but does so inadequately.” Full Review
See it if You want an absorbing theatrical production covering an important period of recent history, deeply moving and powerful
Don't see it if You want a traditional play, or if the subject matter would be an issue, but it’s a topic that needs to be addressed (uncomfy seats)
See it if You’re interested in the white savior narrative/how Americans exploit developing countries’ tragedies for profit
Don't see it if You can’t handle intense theater, deals with heavy trauma
Cast & Creatives (10)
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