We Are Proud To Present A Presentation…

Play (2014)
by Jackie Sibblies Drury

With Jesse James Wood (Actor 1/White Man), Brandon Green (Actor 2/Black Man), Joseph Kidawski (Actor 3/Another White Man), Marc Pierre (Actor 4 / Another Black Man), Lorne Batman (Actor 5/Sarah), Elle Borders (Actor 6/Black Woman)

This daring and moving production of a play in the making about a horrific incident in Namibia at the beginning of the twentieth century rides over tricky dramatic terrain but successfully delivers the audience to a vividly heartbreaking destination.

The full name of this show is “We Are Proud To Present A Presentation…about the Herero of Namibia formerly known as Southwest Africa from the German Sudwest Afrika between the years 1884-1915,” which sums up the subject matter and the general context. The gestalt of the potent transformation from reportage to catharsis cannot be summed up so easily.

Productions of this sort which open the fourth wall – as well as the floor and the ceiling – to scrutiny, can be terribly self-conscious and awkward. This one is not. It is, by its very nature, self-conscious in the sense of conveying awareness of its process, but it is not stilted as a result of doing so.

Amazingly, in addition to being tragically evocative and psychologically rich, it is also entertaining. The staging, with occasional minor choreography and musical embellishment, keeps things moving along beautifully. And the acting, all around, turns out to be great.

Without giving too much away, it is possible to say that producing a play about a racially motivated genocide in Africa is bound to bring up some issues among members of a multiracial cast slated to perform it. This cast, indeed, has three white actors and three black actors and that interracial issue most certainly arises. The interaction of these actors striving to find a way into portraying this event becomes the second level of drama – and it is potent.

The play begins with a simple recounting of the facts of the genocide.

German imperialists in Namibia, then South West Africa, manipulated tribal relations during their ascent to power, and eventually, in the course of taking control of the territory, exterminated eighty percent of the Herero tribe.

The rest of the play is about this cast of six people trying to find a way to convey the import of this awful incident.

The original historic source materials are letters from German soldiers to their wives at home, and the drama begins there, with the troupe trying to portray the contexts that lay behind those partial views. Interpretive issues arise as concerns with representation of the African side emerge. How this troupe deal honestly with those issues, and with one another, forms the substance of the ensuing drama.

The result is quite fantastic. After varied explorations from different angles that really give the viewer a way in to the historic tragedy, there is real catharsis. The play ends with a kind of whimper that is also an incredible bang. Rarely have I sat with an audience that was so quietly moved by the denouement.

This writing is fluid and interesting and really quite out of the box, original, courageous. The direction is adept in all sorts of ways: the production is energetic and coherent and moves right along, and the actors convey authenticity. This play might easily have come across as pretentious and annoying because of its self-consciousness, but with this attuned production, it realizes its difficult goal, driving its point home powerfully.

– BADMan