This time round, the organisers steered clear of the usual suspects in coming up with a cast. The actors, 34 in total, were all drawn from auditions that attracted raw acting talent from across the country, writes Moses Opobo.

The year is 2012. Venue: Dartmouth College, US. Occasion: Honoring Rwanda’s Minister of Health, Dr Agnes Binagwaho with an Honorary Doctorate. 

That evening, Dr Binagwaho shared a dinner table with Andrew Garrod, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Education at Dartmouth College. 

After learning that Garrod was a retired professor of Development Psychology with a long career in producing plays, most notably William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the minister invited him to bring the play to Rwanda.

That December, Garrod travelled down to Rwanda on a preliminary fact-finding tour. 

Recently, he returned to the country with one thing in mind: honoring minister Binagwaho’s request. 

Garrod has since been wholly immersed in preparing a local cast of 34 young people between the ages of 17-24 for the ten upcoming stage productions of Romeo and Juliet, to begin showing in Kigali in the second week of August. 

Carole Karemera, the founder and director of Ishyo Arts Center says: 

"Romeo and Juliet is an exploration into the passionate nature of adolescent love and of the folly of prejudice and violence. It is a highly appropriate play to stage in Rwanda given our recent history. The play tells of young love, strong passion, and reckless clashes across generations and families.”

"At the play’s conclusion after the deaths of the two protagonists, those who remain alive come to understand the futility of violence and the commonality they share with people previously regarded as different from themselves. Nineteen years after the genocide, this production will send a powerful message about the absolute requirement for reconciliation after a period of senseless bloodletting.”

Karemera is the play’s director, and is working hand in hand with Youth Bridge Global, a non-profit organization that facilitates youth theatre productions in domestic and international developing communities---particularly those that have been affected by war. 

Working with Youth Bridge Global, Professor Garrod has previously presented eight Shakespearean productions in the Marshall Islands in the Central Pacific, one in China, and five in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

"Like Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina endured a horrendous war in the early 1990s that involved ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and genocide. Our productions in Bosnia aimed to bring together the children of the former warring factions in this country in reconciliation ---the Muslim Bosniaks, the Catholic Croats, and the Orthodox Serbs. Such plays offered a rare opportunity for former "enemies” to commit to working in harmony on a project that transcended ethnicity. Our central goal in Rwanda is similarly one of reconciliation. Even more important than the final quality of the production is our concern for what our student actors learn during the production process---about themselves, cooperation, respect for individual differences, selflessness and art,” says Garrod. 

Worthy of note is the fact that this time round, the organizers steered clear of the usual suspects in coming up with a cast. The actors, 34 in total, were all drawn from auditions that attracted raw acting talent from across the country.  Hundreds of budding actors showed up at the auditions at the SOS Children’s Village in Kagugu, where rehearsals for the play are taking place. 

24 year-old Mohammed Shimiyimana is acting the lead role of Romeo. A student of Economics at the National University of Rwanda (NUR), he learnt about the auditions through Facebook. "I thought it was a movie at first, until I was told it is a professional set. I’m a Contemporary and Traditional dancer, so I wanted to see how I can expand my experience into acting.”

About Romeo and Juliet he says: "Romeo and Juliet is a very good play. I watched the movie and was very interested. It paints a picture of true love and is educational, because it pits two families against each other. I think the theme is very relevant for our society.” 

He adds: "I’ve found that if I can earn something from dancing and acting, then I will pursue both professionally.” 

And sure enough, eight weeks of intensive practice on a demanding and world famous play under the close supervision of the directing team will lead to some profound psychological and social benefits on the part of the performers.

A team from Youth Bridge Global comprising Canadians, Americans, Britons and Rwandans is working with the budding actors and Ishyo Arts Centre in the preparation of the play. The team consists of theatre professionals and educators and university students. There will be ten free stage performances of Romeo and Juliet at two different locations in Kigali: three performances at one and two at the other. There will also be two performances staged at the National University of Rwanda. 

A distinctive feature of the production is that it will be performed in two languages: 60 per cent of the play will be performed in Kinyarwanda, 20 per cent in plain English and 20 per cent in Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter English. 

Says Carole Karemera: "We have a fair representation of the youth in Rwanda for this play. The actors we are training are drawn from different backgrounds-we have university and college students, the jobless, as well as school dropouts. We want to see how we can improve the artistic and linguistic skills of our young people in a long-lasting and sustainable way. The fact that the play is being staged in three different languages captures the fantastic complexity of language in Rwanda. We want to give Kinyarwanda its own letters of excellence. That can only be achieved through books, novels and short stories in our own language.”