Occasionally an evening of theatre is so different and electrifying it sticks permanently in your memory as one of our very best theatre experiences. Janie and I both feel that way about A Human Being Died That Night.
The play is based on a book by Pumla Gobodo-Madikiezla, describing her work as a member of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission interviewing Eugene de Kock, who had been jailed for his murderous role in the apartheid regime.
Here is a link to the Hampstead resource on this play/production.
We attended the first ever performance of this play, at the Hampstead Theatre Downstairs.
The downstairs lobby area is actually part of the performance space. We were told to sit around and wait, then the character of Pumla Gobodo-Madikiezla, played by Noma Dumezweni does a sort of presentation for us, explaining the background to her involvement and the effect that her interactions with de Kock had on her…
…then she invites us to join her to witness her experiences and leads us into the main downstairs studio space, which is an interview space in the prison where de Kock (played by Matthew Marsh) is incarcerated.
Below is a vid of an interview with the two main actors when the production was revived at the Hampstead the following year:
Below is a short, sharp vid of an interview with Noma when the play transferred to New York:
The version we saw was not reviewed, but basically the same production did the rounds and was reviewed elsewhere – click here for a search term link to those reviews.