The Daily Bulletin Archive

When the Walls Come Down—Truth! is the product of an international collaboration between the Buffalo State Theater Department, the Anne Frank Project, and the Mashirika Theater Company (Rwanda). This devised production culminated in a cultural, humanitarian, and artistic two-week visit to Rwanda in January, when 10 university students experienced the power of theater as a tool for social justice firsthand. The play uses multicultural storytelling traditions to explore non-Western approaches to performance. All storytelling elements of dialogue, poetry, song, shadow play, and dance were created by the student artists from Buffalo and Rwanda. This production brings the theory of storytelling as a cultural bridge and tool for conflict resolution to action. This is the essence of what we are training our student artists to do in the world.

Follow the Gacaca process of the village griot (Gacaca, meaning "justice on the grass," is the village judicial system that surfaced in postgenocide Rwanda). The griot is on trial for creating great pain and suffering to the village. She has damaged their beloved Tree of Life. As the griot attempts to explain her actions, she must take the audience back to the stages of her life to reenact her deeds for all to see so that she may be judged with an open heart. Through blended storytelling traditions, the play uses fable, proverb, shadow play, dance, and song to include the audience as part of the village. Has the world built too many Walls to find her Truth? Is the griot guilty? Innocent? It is for the audience, the village, to decide. 

September 19–22 and 26–29 at 8:00 p.m.
September 22 and 29 at 2:00 p.m.
Flexible Theatre, Donald Savage Theater and Communication Building

Tickets available at the Rockwell Hall Box Office: ext. 3005.