White Dogs And Black Cats
“Our little friend no longer displays the manners and education the White Man taught him. That good old cannibal stars out of his eyes again”.
The path to prejudice and racial stereotypes is easy, just like the premise of our story. Simplification, generalization, and trivialization are capable of fostering in us deep culture ignorance and misunderstanding, as David Jařab exposes in his, at times supernaturally inclined, detective story. Do white Europeans have prejudice rooted in their very being or are they experiencing a renaissance of Fascist ideals?
Akin Musa, an African man, lost his wife and child back home and has begun a new relationship with a white woman “in the heart of Europe.” One day, the police find his partner dead and, rather than have time to mourn, Akin has to figure out how to defend himself. The atmosphere in his jail cell is all the more oppressive given the fact that, in the flow of Akin´s memories, his dead African wife visits him and becomes the voice of Akin´s doubts about the European happiness and success which he set out to find.
David Jařab´s new play is a story about guilt and innocence, prejudice and empathy and, most importantly, about the complexity of these concepts in the context of a post-colonial world.
The translation of the performance was supported by the Arts and Theatre Institute.
