WINDHOEK– The Bank Windhoek Arts Festival and the National Theatre of Namibia (NTN) present a play titled Race about three attorneys, two blacks and one white, who contemplate whether to defend a white man charged with a crime against a black woman.Race will stages at the NTN on May 27, 28 and 29 at 19h30. Tickets are available at Computicket for N$ 80.
Race is a play by David Mamet that premiered on Broadway in December 2009, with James Spader as advocate Jack Lawson. Other well known American actors who played were, David Alan Grier, Kerry Washington and Richard Thomas.
The Namibian cast consists of arguably the top actors in Namibia, Yanna Smith, David Ndjavera, Senga Brockeroff and Morne Botha. The play is directed by Aldo BehrensandJoseph Keamogetsi Molapong.Charles Strickland (white, mid 40s) a prominent business man, has been charged with rape. The woman accusing him is black and the lawyers realise that the case will be all the more difficult because race will be the dominant factor throughout the trial. The men expect Susan, a new attorney with the firm (black, early 20s) to help determine whether or not they should accept Strickland as their client, but Susan has other plans in mind. Her peers, advocates Jacky Lawson (white, mid 40s) and Henry Brown (black, mid 40s) had their work cut out to steer through the legal maces of the processes of law.
“A white jury might assess a judgment of innocence as treason, and a dominant black jury could easily assess an innocent judgment as racism. A dilemma Mamet handles with eye-opening clarity”, says Aldo Behrens,Consultant of the Bank Windhoek Arts Festival (BWAF) and Director of Race.
In a time where the Oscar Pistorius case receives international exposure, Race, a Court Drama,could surely fill in some gaps.
David Mamet, one of the leading dramatists in the USA, is not unknown to Namibians, but in the early and late 1990s, the University of Namibia’s (Unam)’s Drama Department staged two of his earlier plays, namely Duck Variations with Aldo Behrens and Danie Strydom and Olleana with Freddy Philander and Amanda Singhelwa. Other plays by Mamet included Glenn garry glen Ross, Speed the plow, the cryptogram and many more.
Picture: Race