Post by lt on Apr 30, 2024 11:58:37 GMT
I saw this on Friday night, but wanted to think about my review before posting, as I feel a bit torn about it. The play is set in Rwanda in 1994 as the appalling attrocities and genocide is starting and tells the story of Agathe Uwilingiyimana, the first female prime minister of Rwanda who became head of state very briefly. She was assassinated within 24 hours of taking up the role. Agathe was clearly a extraordinary and heroic woman and after watching the play, I went away and found out a lot more about her story, so I am really glad to have seen the play, otherwise, I wouldn't have known anything about her at all.
I think the actress who plays, her Natasha Bain, is great, as is the actor Rio Attoh-Wood who plays Mbaye Diagne (based on a Sengalese peacekeeper, who also has an amazing backstory and would be worthy of a play himself), but overall I thought the rest of the acting was weaker. And I felt that the play itself felt a little like a draft rather than a final production.
The play also makes several changes to important facts of the story, which I felt was questionable. (To take just one example, in the play, Agathe's husband goes missing from his university assumed shot, but actually he and Agathe surrendered themselves together to save their children and were both assassinated at the same time by the Rwandan Presidential guards.)
I think it's really important that theatre tells stories like this, and I so miss the old Tricycle theatre and all the political plays it used to do under Nicolas Kent's directoriship. Something that no other theatre has since replicated. But I just didn't feel this play quite worked.
Agathe's story is an extremely moving and heartbreaking one, so I'd love to see a retelling of her life and work in the theatre again.