Shakespeare in South Sudan

Posted: April 18th, 2012 ˑ Filled under: Arts, Culture & Society ˑ 2 Comments

After 50 years of conflict, a group of dramatists & cultural leaders have come together to celebrate South Sudan’s cultural heritage & artistic potential.

The headlines from the world newest nation is seldom about arts and culture. Actually they never are. At least until now. The recently established South Sudan Theatre Company is currently working on the production of the Shakespearean play “Cymbeline” and will perform it in in London in May during the Globe to Globe part of the World Shakespeare Festival 2012.

The choice of the play is not accidental. Many of the themes in Cymbeline parallel South Sudan’s recent war of independence and its current turmoil. Joseph Abuk, co-director of Cymbeline, explains ”There is conflict surrounding the chairs of power, suspicion, false reports by security men… [as in the play] Sudan’s relationship with the North was that of a coloniser vis-à-vis a colonised and subjugated people, and this led to war, to war, to war. Finally we could say that people reached agreements similar to the arrangements in Cymbeline that brought all the conflicting segments of society within Britain and between Britain and Rome together….That conflict resolution and humanity is at the heart of the similarity between Cymbeline and South Sudan.”