‘In Darfur’ suffers crisis of identity, relatability
“In Darfur” is supposed to be about genocide in the Sudan. Its conflict of concern should involve rebel and military groups, and the tragedy at its heart should be the systematic killing of ethnic populations in 2004.
But halfway through Winter Miller’s play about a white American journalist, an Argentinian-American aid worker and a Darfuri schoolteacher fighting for survival in Darfur, staged at the Landing Theatre through May 13, the drama unknowingly shifts to an altogether different plane. When Maryka (Leslie Lenert), the reporter, begins swilling whiskey with a new friend and they share a moment that just might turn the whole enterprise into a romantic comedy, the fight in “In Darfur” is no longer for humanitarian aid, but for a story.
Story, as protagonist Maryka knows, is everything. Who gets to tell? Who is it told to? Who gets to be the hero? Watching “In Darfur,” you might be inclined to leave out Darfuris for all three questions. The play revolves around a well-meaning white American who wants to save the victims of genocide by publishing a front-page story, which would both incite international response and bolster her career.
She is rough around the edges.
The Dafuris aren’t. They’re perfectly sculpted. The men are villains who beat and rape and shout profanities. The women are statues, silent and angelic in the face of their own destruction. You weep for them, and when you’re done you look away, back toward the center of action. When characters are written as smooth as this, interest bounces off of them like arrows.
Miller is clued in about this enough to include a few scenes talking about the problem with the story. Maryka debates with her editor on just how sexy a story about Darfuri struggle is to the affluent New York Times readership. Is Hawa, a victim of rape by the Sudanese government, a good enough leading character? The editor might bite, as long as Hawa speaks English, or, in other words, bears the marks of American relatability.
But what does Miller think of Hawa’s viability as a leading woman?
Miller realizes that when it comes to journalists and aid workers, Western sympathy has its limits. But the problem with sympathy applies to theater, too. For all of Hawa’s emotional speeches about life, motherhood and education, she’s still standing offstage, invisibly waiting for the next scene of brutalization, while Maryka and Carlos, the aid worker (Manuel Abascal Jr.), make jokes and debate the Darfuri struggle.
Now, the Landing Theatre has, with the guidance of director Troy Scheid, painted an unforgettable picture that evokes unambiguous emotions, yet resists the temptation to simplify international issues. Maryka is not merely the wrongheaded, exploitative tourist of Darfuri struggle, nor only the heroic savior. Hawa, portrayed through a heartbreaking and powerful performance by Yemi Otulana, is not just a voiceless victim, nor just a symbol of decency and strength. Miller and Scheid, both white women, have thought about who controls the narrative and made a noticeable effort to shift the focus toward Darfur.
But try as it might, “In Darfur” cannot break itself out of the convention of the white savior. It was always Maryka’s story and not Hawa’s, the same way “The Help” was always Skeeter’s and not Aibileen’s, the same way “The Blind Side” was always Leigh Ann’s and not Big Mike’s. Miller tries, but she cannot do the impossible — she cannot escape herself.
Must compassion be guided by racial proximity? Maryka’s editor, the no-nonsense Jan (Estee Burks), knows that even the Times’ liberal readers won’t be bothered by a tragedy in Africa unless there’s a “relatable” figure to which they can attach their sympathy, who exhibits some kind of approximation of whiteness. Maryka struggles to get Jan to publish the story until she learns of the Englishspeaking teacher Hawa, a more ideal candidate for “news” than the other, non-English speaking men being executed and women being raped.
But I worry that theater audiences are the same way, that hidden deep inside “In Darfur” is the belief that no one can care about Hawa without a white woman helping to translate her story — that a first and foremost Darfuri story simply can’t be sold to a mainstream American audience.
Scheid has said the language, costume and tone of the play is informed by research and interviews with Houston’s Darfuri community, not to mention outreach and Q-and-A sessions in which audiences can hear from our neighbors who have lived this reality. She is trying to make the story not about her, the kind of self-questioning effort Maryka never made for herself.
Because when Maryka and Jan talk about what’s going on in Darfur, Hawa is busy surviving. She does it offstage. I imagine, while the two New York Times people talk of the intersection of religion, race and government, making this all seem quite intellectual, Hawa scours the fields for food and water.
To Miller’s credit, Hawa gets a few startlingly emotional monologues, and Scheid lets Otulana shine in these moments. That’s more than can be said for “The Help” or “The Blind Side.” If only that center of gravity moved even closer to Hawa, who decides that her life will be as a resident in Sudan, and not as a refugee in the U.S. She knows where her story is. Do we?