After three days of rehearsals

Kigali, March 22

Our third day of rehearsals. We’ve put the furniture on the veranda and use the living of our big white gated villa as our rehearsal room. The actors have seen most part of the DVD of the Cambodian performance and were astonished, how many acts of torture during  genocide and how many effects of trauma after, do actually refer to their own country as well.

They even find similarities in the tone of voice and the music. Having heard them sing some songs, we are convinced there’s no need to worry about the musical score of the play.

Yesterday we conceived a new version of the script, showing three columns:one with the English of the Rwandese parts, one with this text in Kinyarwandan.and one with the English version of the Khmer ( we can’t read the Khmer writing, so it’s no use to have a fourth one in Khmer).

Robert Henderson has arrived day before yesterday from New York. He will be our technician and has already proofed to be a most needed help in finding hidden connecting points on videocamera’s and help us to get the upside up in stead of down of the projected images.. Today he’s on his third day trip, checking all the theatres we’re supposed to play. Unlike Cambodia, Rwanda has some medium sized theatres and performance halls. But most of them do have no, or just a very limited array of technical equipment. Lighting grids are rare. We’re glad we’re used to playing in the open air in Cambodia, so our lighting demands are low.. And the Cambodians will bring our own sound system – the one we’ve brought to Cambodia in 2009. That’s vital.

Thanks to the generosity of  theatre company Hotel Modern,  whose projector is travelling with us, we can make the performance  more visually attractive to a new audience. At this moment Fer and Annemarie are selecting the images that will be filmed during the performance and projected on the original white backdrop made out of Cambodian rice sacks.

Fer has prepared a whole library of images – from the Pol Pot period till nowadays - that can be shown, alternating with the live close ups of the actors.

 NvH.