Moving Boundaries

Rwandan director Dorcy Rugamba shares with Uchenna Izundu his experiences on staging The Investigation, a play about Auschwitz with Rwandan actors.

Why have you chosen to direct The Investigation?

I discovered this play on stage and immediately it struck me as incredibly topical even though it deals with events that date from the Second World War. Evidently, as I listened to the play, Rwanda came to mind at every moment. But it wasn’t just Rwanda, there was also the backdrop of modern society of which the Nazi genocide was one of the most extreme aspects. In short, it is a play about the genocide which is neither fascinated by the murders nor dedicated to solemn commemoration. The play exposes the facts clinically, methodically, and allows the public to draw their own conclusions about the stories. It is this method of giving responsibility to the audience that most appealed to me.

The Investigation was originally written in German and you perform it in French with English subtitles. How difficult was it to translate? What did you leave out?

The [German] play by Peter Weiss lasts approximately five hours and is written in an epic form with eleven verses: each stage leading down towards hell. In spite of the power of this form, we opted for a less epic dramaturgy – rather one that is closer to tragedy and the play lasts one hour twenty minutes.

We wanted the story to be told together, almost in a choir-like form to emphasise the fact that it is a collective drama. We took out a lot of the evidence on the veracity of what happened at Auschwitz. We thought that the historical context had changed and that the audience of today wouldn’t watch the play in the same way as an audience in the 1960s. At that time, there were many people denying the reality of genocide. For them, the victims of Auschwitz or other concentration camps were not anything but collateral damage of a fratricidal war between Europeans. Today it is different. No-one, with the exception of the negationists – who will never change due to ideological reasons – no-one now contests the reality of the genocide of the Jews.

What are the parallels that you draw between the Rwandan and German experience of genocide?

The Frankfurt trial was the first trial where a German court judged the Germans for the acts they committed in the name of their country. The resonance of this trial went further than just the accused. The whole of Germany was forced to confront its contradictions: the weight of all that happened could not simply rest on the shoulders of a few defendants. The situation is similar in Rwanda at the moment. The Gacaca trials, which are the trials happening in the districts that involve the whole population, started three years ago. In both cases, Rwanda and Germany, it is a case of collective trauma, a national drama. Notably, one specific aspect unites Rwanda and Germany – that the genocide of the Jews, like the genocide of the Rwandan Tutsis, was a legal crime. The killers were not working outside the law; it was rather that zealous patriots were working for a criminal state. When they killed, they had the law and the state on their side.

Can there ever be reconciliation from the Rwandan massacre?

We will never have reconciliation if we see it as a goal in itself. If there is reconciliation one day, it will be the long-term result of many factors. Justice must have been reached; the crimes and the criminals will have been judged and condemned. A long, slow, uphill educational journey will have to be taken: notably to give the young generation new criteria for identity that is less narrow and extreme. Economic progress is necessary as well for many, both in the regional and international context. Rwanda is not an island – if the world is doing badly, it would surprise me if Rwanda were doing any better.

The Investigation is running from 31 October - 10 November at the Young Vic theatre in London. To book tickets call 020 7922 2922 or visit www.youngvic.org