|PIC1|The Riding Lights Theatre Company will hit London's West End this week with its brand new production African Snow in collaboration with York Theatre Royal.

The production - the first such collaboration between the two theatre companies - brings John Newton, the former slave trader who made a dramatic conversion to Christ, face to face with Olaudah Equiano, a former slave and leading black figure in the British movement to abolish the slave trade.

The play has been commissioned by Church Mission Society, founded in 1799 by representatives of the abolitionist movement including William Wilberforce, and deliberately coincides with the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade this year.

But what makes this powerful production so extraordinary is the intention at its heart to tell the abolitionist story from a uniquely black perspective; African Snow features only one white actor in its otherwise entirely black cast.

And the play isn't just about the past either. The Artistic Director of Riding Lights, Paul Burbridge, hopes the production will leave the audience with a determination to tackle modern forms of slavery in the world today, like economic injustice and sex trafficking.

African Snow has already received rave reviews from the likes of The Times and the BBC since it opened at York Theatre Royal three weeks ago, and the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has praised the production for successfully transforming "bygone history into a pulsating human story".

Christian Today caught up with Paul to find out his motive behind the production of African Snow and what he hopes members of the audience will take away from their theatre experience.


CT: You've almost finished a run of African Snow in York. What's the response been like?

PB: We've been running three weeks and two of those weeks were officially holiday weeks but we were still getting a really good audience level. York Theatre Royal, who is co-producing this with Riding Lights, have really been really pleased with the numbers coming to what is a new play and a new production.

Since the schools have been back this week we've had really large audiences and we've put on extra matinees so young people have been coming along and we've been getting a good range of ages.

CT: And the younger audiences have responded well to it?

PB: Very much. We had a talk-back session after the show last night and a whole group of young people stayed and said they had been really gripped. They enjoyed the style of the production, I think, and were really beheld by the story because the story is a really moving and compelling one.

CT: How do you feel about hitting London's West End next week?

PB: We are obviously apprehensive a little bit in terms of the implications of that but in another way we are really excited because it is the perfect theatre for the show in the sense that it is situated in Whitehall so one way out of the theatre doors you look and there is Big Ben, which is all to do with the parliamentary side of the abolition itself, and when you look the other way you see Nelson's Column, which is in a whole square devoted to the year 1805 - the same period as the slave trade's abolition in1807.


CT: What was the motive behind running African Snow at this particular point in time?

|PIC2|PB: Obviously we'd been working towards this for some years in terms of developing the play and the whole project because we knew the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was coming up and we felt we wanted to make our contribution to marking that event.

We didn't want to be responsible for some kind of historical piece that would just commemorate the past but produce a play that would have real relevance and challenge the extent to which slavery is still a huge and dreadful problem in the world today in all kinds of new and modern disguises. So although we are not talking about people being shipped around the oceans in chains we are aware of the slaveries that goes on in economic terms, in terms of trade, sex trafficking and all those kinds of ghastly things all around the world.

We have been working with Christian organisations like Church Mission Society who helped us commission the play and whose founders include John Newton and William Wilberforce. These are organisations that are currently working against slavery and they are running campaigns in various parts of the globe, so that has been really good to feel that this is a challenge that is relevant now and that we are not only looking back but absolutely trying to catch a moment of significance in our national life when people can think deeply about slavery and what enslaves people and how one society, almost in ignorance, can enslave another.


CT: The play brings together John Newton and Olaudah Equiano in an imaginary meeting. Why did you feel it was necessary to bring these two historical figures together in the play in that way?

PB: We do know that because Olaudah Equiano and John Newton and Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect and other people were very involved together in the campaign, it is almost impossible to believe that these people didn't actually meet. Although there are no minutes from a meeting that we can point to to say they were in the same room together the likelihood is that they did meet. And both Equiano and Newton were called upon by Wilberforce to testify before Parliament in that campaign that took so long. It is a powerful and potent image for the whole thing because obviously the whole issue of slavery then and now is vast. As a writer, as creative people, you are looking for that human story that encapsulates the heart of it and I think we found that in the stories of these two men there was absolutely a representative white man and a representative black man who carried the heart of the problem of the play, which is: can they ever really sit down at the same table? Can they ever really be reconciled? Can there ever really be forgiveness? What kind of meeting in every level needs to take place before people are really able to be one? And it is more challenging because they are Christian so they have to meet.

It does ask very big questions of how we move away or move on from the legacy of these things which we still see in our society. There are still mistrustful attitudes between people of different races and different churches and it is core to the whole play.

The gap between them is a bit like the hand of God on the Sistine Chapel. What stories are there? What passes between them when finally Wilberforce brings them together? What chemistry is there between the hands of the white man and the black if they really are able to be reconciled and forgiven and move on together? And the play leaves that as partly an open question.

Portraying the slave trade accurately is incredibly sensitive. Did you encounter any challenges while you were putting the production together?

On a practical level we felt we wanted to take this play into those cities which traditionally in the UK are associated with the history of slavery like Liverpool and Bristol and London. We managed London but failed to get into Liverpool and finally managed to get into a theatre in Bristol.

|PIC3|There may be lots of reasons for that. It may be that in certain places major theatres were going to do something of their own on a similar subject but there may also be a sense in which the wounds are still quite tender under the surface and people have a hesitancy about stirring things up.

So it has been a challenge to get this play to be taken by as many theatres as we would like but we have still managed to get a good tour together and we are really pleased about that.

In terms of the company from the outset, I wanted the story to be told from essentially a black perspective. I wanted there to be only one white actor in the cast - John Newton - and everybody else to be played by a black ensemble around Equiano, just to make sure that the filter by which a British audience is looking at this story was very firmly an African one.

Whether we've seen Amazing Grace the film or whatever we are aware that there can be a little bit of false self-congratulation in a sense in the white community for saying, 'Oh, well, we've got these great inspirational white leaders like Wilberforce who changed the world,' but of course the part played by the black leaders is terribly significant and Equiano's story was just waiting to be really represented to people and his is the one that really grabs you, although Newton's is complicated as the white history is indeed complicated - it takes a long time for people to come out and say 'I was wrong' and confess publicly. But Equiano's story has never really been told properly before until comparatively recently and it is a really exciting story and I wanted that to be the motor behind the entire thing.

But in terms of problems, there have been no problems at all! I have had a wonderful time working with both this particular cast and also Ben Okafor, a Nigerian singer who has written some fantastic music, which has given the production a very rich and African flavour.


CT: So that was quite important to you as Artistic Director?

PB: Yes absolutely, to make sure it felt like Africans telling an African's story. It's interesting because it really does make an impact on the audience. They think, 'oh Wilberforce is being portrayed to us through a black man?'

People have said, after seeing the big film [Amazing Grace], where are the black actors in the film? Where is the black story? Of course, it isn't in the film. But it is very much in African Snow so if people want that balance redressed they should come and see this.

CT: There's so much behind any production that the audience doesn't see and months and months of preparation. What's been a highlight for you?

PB: I think there have been delightful moments for me as a theatre director working with an ensemble who are very multi-talented and flexible and giving on stage and there are moments of real power where there are lots of bodies on stage and you really get a sense of the numbers who were enslaved and forced to travel on boats, dancing or singing songs, whether it's Amazing Grace or from their African tribal roots.

It's been just a very powerful and delightful experience and felt very collaborative. That stays with me, that we've done this together.


CT: What do you want the audience to take away from the production?

PB: I would like them to be thoroughly entertained and uplifted and inspired by these individuals, particulary Equiano - as much for a black audience as well as a white audience. Because I think there are too few black role models presented to the people who are really challenging and inspirational. I want people to be entertained and really moved not just by the horrors of slavery but more by the sense in which committed individuals, no matter how large the tasks facing them, can really make a huge difference,

I want people to take the opportunity to think very deeply not only about a moment in history 200 years ago when something was done about slavery but to think what can be done now. What can we as individuals tackle in terms of awareness and consciousness and political campaigning on behalf of children or vulnerable women and nations that are oppressed in the world today? I think that's really important.

Ends



African Snow will run at the West End's Trafalgar Studios from Tuesday 24 April until Saturday 5 May before continuing on its nationwide tour.

For dates and more details, go to www.ridinglights.org