Humanity Hallows Issue 5 Out Now
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By Pierangelly del Rio
The 2017 SICK! Festival brought a performance of Fractured Memory to Manchester’s HOME last week. The play explores the questions surrounding how we deal with a complex inherited history and is a combination of video projections, text extracts and storytelling. It re-imagines the American novelist James Baldwin’s Princes and Powers, an essay which describes the Congress of Afro-intellectuals, writers, artists, philosophers and theorists held at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1956.
Fractured Memory is written by and stars Ogutu Muraya, a Kenyan writer, theatre-maker and storyteller. Muraya is currently the Creative Director of the Theatre Company of Kenya and has produced works such as Are We Here Yet?, Four Strings in a Maze, and What Are the Odds? Like his previous works, Fractured Memory explores and examines the cultural, social and political issues within Kenya.
The play opens with a projection of a man cutting paper strings full of sentences, separating them into individual words, followed by a silent narrator who promises to tell many stories. This sets the tone of the play, which becomes a set of disjointed narratives and shifting perspectives throughout multiple years.
During the 60 minute performance, the audience explores the legacy of the Congress at the Sorbonne, learns about the socialist party of Kenya (KPU) and its eventual ban by the government, as well as childhood memories marked by violence and the distress caused by the social climate in the country. The topics of politics, race, colonisation and violence weigh heavily throughout the play, portrayed in a disjointed spectacle which plays with the boundaries between visual and oral narrative.
Despite the unconventional nature of Fractured Memory and the simplicity of the performance, its real value is transmitted by powerful images and Muraya’s voice. The audience finds themselves submerged in the diverse stories and captured by every word of the diverse narrations. The poetic language evidences Muraya’s talent as a story teller and serves as a tool to transmit the realities of a culture that might be unknown for some.
As James Baldwin himself said, “The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do… And it is with great pain and terror that one begins to assess the history that has placed one where one is, and formed one’s point of view.”
For more information about upcoming theatre events at HOME, visit the website.
In each print issue, aAh! Magazine interrogates one word which runs as a theme throughout our published submissions. This time, we’re changing things up as we introduce aAh! The FRESHERS Issue and launch our Featured Artist brief ‘NEON CITY’. This special mini issue of aAh! will feature a guide to all Manchester has to offer….
Photography: Georgina Hurdsfield Sam Fender headlines Castlefield Bowl for Manchester’s Sounds of the City, straight off the back of performing a peak-time slot on Glastonbury Festival’s famous Pyramid Stage, Fender brings his electrifying set back for Manchester fans.
Autumn isn’t here just yet! You’ve still got time before the hustle and bustle of real life comes at you as August gives us one more month of summertime fun with a sports championship, one of the world’s oldest music festivals and ending with the main event, Manchester Pride. Be sure to make the most of these last days of summer and get out there.
It’s not long now until the hordes of people will be descending on the Lake District’s much-loved festival ground, Lowther Deer Park. After two years of consecutively being cancelled its set to take place from Thursday 28 July to Monday 1 August.
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