I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me by a: Given to Me by a Young Lady from Rwanda

by Sonja Linden

 Have Before Me a Remarkable Document…   was inspired by the real life experiences of Rwandan refugees in the UK. The play tells the story of two people from entirely different worlds who meet at a Refugee Centre in Juliette is a young Rwandan asylum seeker, determined to write a book on the genocide that killed her family; Simon is a middle-aged failing novelist, whose job is to help people write. The play follows their funny and touching relationship and tackles issues that face many refugees who live in the UK today. I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document…  was a Time Out Critics’ Choice and was broadcast by BBC World Service as well as touring nationally and internationally. Following a London run and National UK tour, the play received its American premiere at Kansas City Rep in March 2005 and has subsequently gone on to receive more than 30 productions across the US.

Genres: Plays

64 pages, Paperback

Published September 28, 2004

Reviews

[Martin Denton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Try to imagine what it would be like if, one day, your neighbor came to your house with a dozen associates and told them to kill you and your family--and then, with machetes, they did exactly that. This is, essentially, what happened in the Rwanda genocide in 1994; this kind of thing has happened and continues to happen throughout human history. But even though we read about it, do we ever really feel it (unless it actually happens to us or to someone close to us)?

I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me by a Young Lady from Rwanda is a play that lets us get much closer than usual to this awesomely horrific experience. Playwright Sonja Linden has cannily constructed this piece as a fish-out-of-water sort of story, pairing Simon, a British poet/novelist who is teaching writing to refugees, with one of his students, Juliette, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide who has come to live in the UK. Juliette has written about what happened in Rwanda, and the lengthy manuscript that she presents to Simon at their very first meeting is the one that gives the play its long title: Juliette fantasizes that as soon as Simon casts his eyes on her life's work, he will immediately call a prominent publisher and make her and her book famous.

But that's not what happens in this play, and while I don't want to give too much away (because it actually is full of surprises and humor, its basic subject matter notwithstanding), I will tell you that the thrust of Linden's work is to show us how Juliette learns to trust and understand Simon and his world while he learns how little he actually knows about hers and tries to rectify that. The acquisition of knowledge, comprehension, and real acceptance of each other and each other's cultures is the theme of the play; it makes the piece universal, and reminds us that if this sort of authentic, human exchange could just occur over and over again in the world, one pair of disparate individuals at a time, it is just possible that another Rwanda genocide could never happen, or if it did, that at least people who might be able to do something to stop it--say, Westerners--might actually try to stop it.

This is, somehow, a lesson that keeps needing to be taught; Linden teaches it with so much intelligence and warmth and theatrical know-how that Remarkable Document never feels like a lesson, not even for a nanosecond. But it always feels remarkable, as it unfolds its tale of a how a more-or-less failed poet and a completely shattered and broken young woman are able to grow and thrive from their encounters with one another.

Even though what's described here is as bleak and terrible as any deed ever perpetrated by one human against another, the message at the heart of Linden's play is ultimately very hopeful.

[behsforensics]

2019: NSDA DI Finalist

[Barclay Sparrow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the dialogue and narrative of this play - Juliette's perspective and descriptions of her experience with the genocide and powerful and well-crafted. However, I had to take away a star for the romantic subplot, which was both unnecessary and distracting from what the point of the story, which was to give focus to a refugee.

[Cecilia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Playmakers is doing this in the spring and I am designing it. I gave it a first read last night and it's great. I look forward to digging into it further. I am interested in the world of starkness with is safer than a world of feeling and color and how that melts through out the play into a healthier place of healing.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this piece made me want to see it performed. The story is very clean despite all the greys of human nature. A delicate balance.