Boys in arms: Mauricio Brandes, Luiana Bonfirm and Duane Palmer.
Play: Like Enemies of the State
Theatre: New Diorama Theatre
Playwright: Tommy Lexen
Review by Natalie Gormally
Like Enemies of the State is a powerful piece of political theatre on the brutal real life stories of child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The Congo has been embroiled in a savage war, with over five million people killed, making it the deadliest conflict since World War II. Yet intense fighting in the region continues, and some of its biggest causalities are its children.
Three years ago, London-based Swedish writer and director Tommy Lexen travelled through the DRC in an attempt to understand the impact the war had on its young children. The result is Like Enemies of the State.
Lexen’s powerful script emerged from the interviews he conducted in the DRC with former child soldiers, street children, local and international NGOs, UN representatives and the Congolese government. But his dramatic focus is not on the consequences of the ongoing conflict, but the causes.
In this 70 minute production, we are shown a glimpse of the types of social and political realities these children face. The idea that children, sometimes as young as eight, are kidnapped or lured from their homes to a life of fear, brutality and violence still shocks. The fact that girl soldiers are often used as sex slaves by the male combatants even more so.
A graver reality is that many of these children sign up to fight voluntarily. After a lifetime of war, they are faced with few opportunities and debilitating poverty with no access to formal education. As for the army, there is a very simple reason why they use child soldiers: children are easier to manipulate. They don’t need as much food, don’t require payment and don’t have a highly developed sense of danger, making it all too easy to send them into the line of fire.
The four actors, Mauricio Brandes (Pierre), Vikash Bhai (Kondo), Luiana Bonfim, impressive as Damien, and Duane Palmer, who plays three different male roles, are solid. They run through a range of roles, intercutting the children’s personal testimonies with fully played out scenes, as well as the experiences of an American journalist investigating the rebels and the government’s army’s use of child fighters.
Ben Osborn and Hiroko Matsuo’s sound and set design aids the play’s pace and bleakness without losing momentum. Props and costumes are cleverly laid out as part of the stage design, assisting the actors quick and seamless scene changes. The news reports and film clips, projected onto hanging sheets helps to unravel this unfamiliar and complex story.
This thoroughly researched production is powerful and ensures that justice is done to its source material. The play paints a depressing, multifaceted and affecting picture of these children’s unheard voices in, what many refer to as Africa’s forgotten war.
Like Enemies of the State is at the New Diorama Theatre until Saturday 26 October 2013.