I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given To Me By a Young Lady From Rwanda by Sonja Linden.

Burton Taylor Theatre Tues 2nd - Saturday 6th July 2002

This is a play as much about what writing is and should be as it is the tale of 2 characters and their convergence. Do we think of writing as lacking when it is factually correct and detailed but devoid of emotional input? And, if we do, does this viewpoint only arise from a relatively privileged standpoint, where we are able to look at the 'self' as a construct and so to a certain degree view it objectively?

The two characters around whom the play is based are Juliette, a Rwandan refugee recently arrived in London and Simon an aspiring and somewhat failed writer. He takes on a position at the Refugee Centre in London to help refugees with their writing, in the hope that this may aid their acceptance of and recovery from their ordeals. These two characters are presented as the seeming antithesis of each other, in terms of both background and ideology. Their solid expectations of the other before they first meet are, of course, completely off the mark and it is from this uneasy start that their relationship develops.

In their initial meeting their opposing views of life are reflected through their thoughts on writing. Juliette presents her book, completed after months in the library collating factual material to make the writing ' better', of the genocide of 1994. As Simon cannot read this piece due to it being in her native language he asks if this is then a 'personal account'-a term with no meaning to her as she sees it as simply 'what happened'. To her there is no difference, as the 'self' is not a literary construct that can be played with: her urgency is to produce something written which covers the atrocities that took place so the dead will not be forgotten and she can forgive herself for surviving. His failed book, hiding in a drawer, is presented as the diametric opposite - it is so overtly about the individual in writing that he has tried to write an entire book novel without ever using the letter 'i'. Whilst Simon can write this because of the separation of subject matter from his life, for Juliette the two are one and the same.

It is fiercely political play, but in the quietest and most affecting way, where the personal is political. Through the use of Juliette and her struggles to write, Sonja Linden conveys quite clearly how much more tangible something is when a personal history is told, rather than when the multitudinous facts about the numbers of the dead, the injured, the diseased, the troops involved and the aid money sent over are rattled off. This is not a chart of who died when, it is a story of a life that has been irrevocably damaged. Through this personal ordeal many issues of genocide and how the west has dealt with, or not dealt with, such events are thrown forward: much of this is not pleasant. However, there is also much humour along the way, which when dealing with this subject matter is most probably needed.

As Juliette, Ivy Omere is stunning: whilst talking from her hostel room I could not only envisage the room but the entire building containing it, the streets beyond and sense the life outside it. Her eyes alone conveyed everything. By the end of the play I wished there existed, for me to read, an actual book that her character had been writing. If the full auditorium on the first night its anything to go by you would be fortunate to get a ticket to see this remarkable piece. And fortunate you would be - it is a moving play in the best sense of the word - simple and beautiful, and brought to life with great care.

Liz Buckle 02.06.2002