THE HANGOVER REPORT – En Garde Arts’ production of RED HILLS elegantly combines immersive storytelling and traditional theatergoing

red-Hills-2-Sifiso-Mabena

Last night, I caught the final performance of En Garde Arts’ production of Red Hills by Asiimwe Deborah Kawe and Sean Christopher Lewis. The play tells the story of two men with very different backgrounds, and the traumatic shared experience that binds them together. One is a bestselling American writer and recent establisher of an NGO; the other is a scrappy Rwandan tour guide. The piece commences during the present day, but as the play unfolds, we’re whisked back to 1990s Rwanda to investigate the fateful meeting and harrowing experiences endured by these two then teenagers. Set against the genocide against the Tutsi, the play explores notions of memory, appropriation, and ultimately the truth.

Ms. Kawe and Mr. Lewis’s play is serviceable, even powerful, at times. But it’s director by Katie Pearl’s immersive, thoughtfully designed approach to the play that really seduced me. I thought her work balanced immersive and traditional theatergoing elements beautifully. Indeed, the production’s immersive portions were simply and elegantly executed, without much of the logistical fussiness that sometimes accompanies such stagings. As a result, the gradual progression from NGO launch to 1994 Rwanda and back again had the same unsettling, increasingly suffocating (a compliment) impact on me as the journey into the dense jungle of Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”.

As the two men around whom Red Hills revolves, Christopher McLinden and Patrick J. Ssenjovu did a commendable job of creating convincing portraits. Their performances had the ring of believability and authenticity, even when the play itself veered towards broader emotional and intellectual strokes. Throughout, they were backed by haunting vocal and mostly-percussive underscoring, courtesy of singer Sifiso Mabena and musician Farai Malianga.

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RED HILLS
Off-Broadway, Play
En Garde Arts
1 hour, 45 minutes (without an intermission)
Closed

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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