I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document

Given to Me by a Young Lady from Rwanda

By Sonja Linden

Directed by Andrea J. Dymond

At Victory Gardens Theater

2257 N. Lincoln Avenue

Chicago, IL

Call 773-871-3000, tickets $

Wednesdays through Fridays at 8 PM

Saturdays at 5 & 8 PM

Sundays at 3 PM

Running time is 90 minutes with no intermission

Through March 12, 2006

Lady from Rwanda is a bland unemotional work

Covering genocide in modern Africa is a worthy topic that needs to be explored by playwrights. However, Sonja Linden’s work is amazingly dull and unemotional. Where is the rage, the nightmares and that accompanies survivors of genocide? In this tepid play we meet a nice African woman, Juliette, played enchantingly by Yetide Badaki who is seeking help with her book on the genocide in Rwanda that clamed most of her family from British refugee worker Simon, played with prescribed blandness by Lance Stuart Baker.

This play is a slow moving affair that deals with the growing relationship with the unremarkable British poet/writer who calmly helps Juliette come up with a motif with which to tell her story. Along the way, we don’t learn much about either as the writing seems cliché-ridden following the standard formula in mentor-protégé plays. This play doesn’t go anywhere, nor does it offer any revealing insights into either character. When the play finally ended, I asked my self why I wasted 90 minutes with a play whose only purpose seemed to be to describe the terrible murders in Rwanda. The Juliette character didn’t seem believable as a genocide survivor.

Simon learns and is motivated by mentoring Juliette. Wow! Like that hasn’t been done before? Too bad an important topic was give such a superficial treatment.

Not Recommended

Tom Williams

Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments

Talk Theatre in Chicago Radio show

February 4, 2006