Do we know what our country has done? Do we know our history? The Trestle production in collaboration with Blindeye raises these questions at the Tobacco Factory Theatre in Bristol through a story of friendship, betrayal and terror. A stripped off adaptation of Beverley Naidoo’s novel Burn My Heart takes place in Kenya and tells the story of two friends and their families that, in different ways, are victims of the Mau Mau insurgence of the 1950s.
The political dissent of Kenyan anti-colonials against white landowners disrupts the life of Matthew, a young British boy, son of the Graysons, good employers well integrated within the Kikuyu society. Matthew is friends with Mugo, the son of his father’s loyal head groom, whose main purpose in life is to procure a good education for his children.
The situation breaks down with the arrival of a British major whose job is to catch possible Mau Mau insurgents. With the tension increasing both in the political and the private spheres, the tragic end sees Matthew and Mugo separated by devastating events.
Playwright Rita Vergano orchestrates a vigorous sequence of fast-paced scenes where physical theatre, African rhythms, drumming and movement styles are successfully combined. ‘It’s such a theatrical novel that it seemed almost natural to adapt it into a play. The story moves quickly and is essentially told by the two boys. This is very crucial to me: children are the real victims of these events,’ she says.
A convincing cast of five portrays 25 different characters. It is especially interesting to see Lowri James and Lydiah Gitachu crossing the gender boundaries by playing Matthew and Mugo respectively. ‘Playing a boy opened up my creativity,’ said Lydiah who has travelled from Kenya to join this production. Christian Dixon is also convincing as both the loyal head groom and the patronising police chief.
Taking about the cast and the text, Vergano affirms: ‘I wrote three versions that adapted to cast and time restrictions. It’s a big story to tell in 70 minutes and for this reason the text had to be copiously cut off. Yet, the fact that the production counted on only five actors helped. In this case, I would say that less was better.’ She continues: ‘The choice of who was playing who was determined by the sequence of the scenes and the physical positions of each character in each moment, which had to match perfectly with the mix of text, storytelling and physical theatre. Writing this play was like playing Sudoku.’
With regard to the text, Sam Parks adds: ‘So much of the original text had to be stripped off that the result is a beginning and an end with much more text than the rest of the play. Closing the circle, the end echo’s the beginning with Mugo’s most powerful line ‘When you have to leave in a hurry, you can’t choose to take with you the thing which you love the best.’
In the same way as the conscience of the characters is shaken by unpredictable circumstances, the conscience of the audience is shaken by director Oliver Jones’s message: an inconvenient period in the British Empire history has been almost forgotten, leaving new generations unaware of the history of their country. All in all, this is a play suitable to a young audience exploring friendship and historical consciousness.
Burn My Heart is on tour. For details see www.trestle.org.uk
For Tobacco Factory events see www.tobaccofactory.com