Dear Children, Sincerely…

Directed by the noted Sri Lankan playwright, director and activist Ruwanthie de Chickera, this eclectic ensemble production is a collaboration between Stages Theatre Group, Sri Lanka and Mashirika, Rwanda. Dear Children, Sincerely (DCS) is an ongoing research project, initiated in Sri Lanka in 2015, which gathers stories from people born in the 1930s in the two countries and presents them to younger generations through live performance. These are people who had experienced colonisation and journeyed out of it, having to face civil war and worse; more than 70 senior citizens have been interviewed through the DCS project and so far more than two dozen stories exploring the parallel colonial and post-colonial histories of Rwanda and Sri Lanka have been created for performance.

The international cast  has been reunited after ten years for this performance of three of the plays:

Seven Decades Deep: an historical journey that moves between Rwanda and Sri Lanka from 1930 to 1990 with tales of colonisation, independence, exile, insurrections and genocide.

My Family Marriage: a humorous merging of traditional wedding customs from the two countries, exploring how older Rwandan and Sri Lankan generations experienced family and matrimony.

Upside Down Land: drawing from Rwanda’s and Sri Lanka’s dark histories of genocide, pogroms and civil war, this story delves into the complete physical and psychological collapse of a society subjected to prolonged anarchy and terror.

There is a second performance tomorrow (27 Sept) at the same time.