HEWA RWANDA - LETTER TO THE ABSENT ADELAIDE FESTIVAL 25

 

Hewa Rwanda  Letter to the absent

Author Dorcy Rugamba, Performers Dorcy Rugamba and Majnun, Musical creation: Majnun and Akasha. Stage manager,Jules Nionkuru. Dialogue director Judy Dennis. Production Rwanda Arts Initiative (Rwanda)/The Charge of the Rhinoceros (Belgium). Producer Ellen Dennis USA. Tour manager The Charge of the Rhinoceros (chargedurhinoceros.be) Presented by Arts Projects Australia and Adelaide Festival. Supported by Wallonie Bruxelles Internationale (WBI) and Commission Communautaire Francaise (COCOF) Belgium. Elder Hall. March 3-6 2025

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

It is impossible not to be profoundly moved at the sight of the family photo upon the large screen behind Dorcy Rugamba. It haunts me still as I sit to write this review of Hewa Rwanda --Letter to the absent. The camera captures a loving Rwandan family, neatly dressed one suspects for a special occasion. There is no premonition of the horror that is about to befall. On April 7^th 1994, during the Rwandan civil war, members of the presidential guard invaded the family’s home and slaughtered ten members of the Tutsi family. Not one person was spared. Not Rugamba’s 59 year old father, his 50 year opld mother, his brothers, his sisters or the children ranging in age from 6 years to 16. Only Dorcy Rugamba, who was away at the time escaped the violent fate of the ten members of the family. 

Dorcy Rugamba presents Hewa Rwanda. Letter to the absent

Rugamba, simply dressed in trousers and an orange shirt enters to the lectern at the front of the stage. He is accompanied by musician Majnun with his Senegalian  string instrument. What follows is a reading of a memoir so vivid and so powerfully moving that it is impossible not to be transfixed by Rugamba’s narration and Majnun’s lyrical accompaniment. Music, poetry and anecdote coalesce in what Rugamba describes as a hymn to life. This is not an account of atrocity. That is implicit in the memoir and the photo on the screen. It is thirty years since his family was stolen from him. The mourning and the heart-breaking grief remain a memory of the time. Rugamba writes his heartfelt hymn to life, a love letter to  family that lived, loved, had dreams and achievements and were more than a statistic, a number or maybe a name scratched on a wall. They were Rugamba’s family, a father he adored, a loving mother who was the bedrock of the family, a sister whose embrace he recalls so fondly. Herwa – Letter to the absent is more than a eulogistic acknowledgement of the dead. It is a celebration of the living. It is a life affirming memoir – a hymn to the living and a gift to an audience who listen to the pain of his experience, the love in his song, and the memory in the music. There is theatre in his performance and drama in his and his father’s poetry.

The photo portrays a family frozen in time. Each year Rugamba returns to the house in Kingali in Rwanda. The ivy still clings to the wall. The guava falls from the tree. He remembers the open air theatre with its dirt floor that his father created for the community. He recalls with regret the fact that he never had the opportunity to explain to his dismayed mother why he embraced the Muslim faith and the teachings of the Quran and reconcile them to his decision.

There are regrets and there are lessons to be learned. He understands why the big will lay blows on the little and the little will lay blows on the weak when they become the big. The vicious cycle of violence does not end. He understands that if you abolish hate, the pain remains to be dealt with. And finally, the only absolute is love.

The performance of Hewa Rwanda – Letter to the absent does not leave you. It remains in the intensity of Rugamba’s vocal and musical delivery. The imagery of the language envelops you. Rugamba and Majnun have created a work of profound integrity that is much more than a personal memoir. It is a lesson for the living and a resurrenction of the dead. It is, in short, brilliant theatre.