VOA常速英语2007年-Rwandan Genocide Center Stage in ‘The Overwhelm

By Carolyn Weaver¹
New York City
28 November 2007
 
An American play that deals with the most difficult of subjects -- the ethnic² hatreds³ in Rwanda that led to the genocidal killings⁴ of an estimated 800,000 to one million people -- has drawn⁵ critical acclaim⁶ and theater audiences in New York City. Now playing off-Broadway in a Roundabout Theatre production, “The Overwhelming” – which premiered in London in 2006 – is by a New York-based dramatist who’d never been to Africa when he wrote it.

Playwright⁷ J.T. Rogers says he didn’t tell anyone he was writing a play set in Rwanda in the days just before the 1994 genocide. It began that same year, he says, when he could not stop thinking about the newspaper accounts he was reading about the killings. “I became more and more fascinated by the intricacies of the political situation, and the sort of moral vacuum and the terror that people were going through,” he said in an interview recently. “And slowly the dramaturge in me took over, and I started to think, ‘Well, if you were there, Rogers, facing a situation like this, what would you do, when all your decisions or all your options were monstrous⁸?’ ”

So, Rogers says, he read all he could find on Rwandan history and culture. He pored over thousands of pages on the genocide, and studied the main language of Rwanda, Kinyarwanda. He says he even memorized a 1994 street map of Kigali, the capital. Only when the play was finished did he visit Rwanda, with director Max Stafford-Clark, and meet genocide survivors⁹. “I said, ‘Would you read this play, would you tear it apart if it doesn’t work?’ ” he remembers. “And it was immensely moving and humbling¹⁰ for the general response to be, ‘You got it’.”

“The Overwhelming” centers on an American academic, Jack¹¹ Exley, who arrives in Kigali with his wife and son just before the killings begin. They meet Western diplomats¹² and aid workers there, and many Rwandans – all played by American actors. The Rwandans include some members of the majority Hutu ethnic group who speak malevolently¹³ of the minority Tutsis. “All of these Tutsi doctors, they are Inkoytani [a derogatory term, meaning Tutsi aggressors]. Milk-drinkers. Killers,” says a Rwandan policeman to the professor.

Exley is there to write a book about his old friend, an AIDS doctor who is a Tutsi. But his old friend is missing. As fear and violence ratchet up, the professor is uncertain whom, or what, to believe. Are the Hutus he met truly the victims? Are there really lists of Tutsis to be killed, as some insist? Must he make a choice, when he isn’t even sure what is happening?  “We are in a civil war, Jack,” a Tutsi character tells him. “To not choose a side – this is as bad as choosing the wrong one.”

J.T. Rogers says the point of the play is to raise – not answer – moral questions.  “I’m interested in trying, at least, to write stories that people will think about afterwards,” he says, “and think about the same questions that prompted me to write the story: In this case, what would it be like to live through an experience like the Rwandan genocide, and what are the facts that led to it, and what does it tell us about ourselves?”

He says Rwandan audience members have a particular reaction to the play. “The comment I get over and over,” he says, “is ‘It was so hard to watch, I wanted to jump up at points and stop the play. Thank you so much for not only writing this play, but for writing it in a way that shows how complicated and morally ambiguous it was’.”

1 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。

2 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

3 hatreds   

n.仇恨，憎恶( hatred的名词复数 )；厌恶的事

参考例句：

• He had more enimies and hatreds than anyone could easily guess from his thoughtful expression. 从他的思想表达方式难以被人猜透来看，他的敌人和仇家是不会多的。 来自辞典例句
• All the old and recent hatreds come to his mind. 旧恨新仇一起涌上他的心头。 来自互联网

4 killings   

谋杀( killing的名词复数 )； 突然发大财，暴发

参考例句：

• His statement was seen as an allusion to the recent drug-related killings. 他的声明被视为暗指最近与毒品有关的多起凶杀案。
• The government issued a statement condemning the killings. 政府发表声明谴责这些凶杀事件。

5 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

6 acclaim   

v.向…欢呼，公认；n.欢呼，喝彩，称赞

参考例句：

• He was welcomed with great acclaim.他受到十分热烈的欢迎。
• His achievements earned him the acclaim of the scientific community.他的成就赢得了科学界的赞誉。

7 playwright   

n.剧作家，编写剧本的人

参考例句：

• Gwyn Thomas was a famous playwright.格温·托马斯是著名的剧作家。
• The playwright was slaughtered by the press.这位剧作家受到新闻界的无情批判。

8 monstrous   

adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的

参考例句：

• The smoke began to whirl and grew into a monstrous column.浓烟开始盘旋上升，形成了一个巨大的烟柱。
• Your behaviour in class is monstrous!你在课堂上的行为真是丢人！

9 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

10 humbling   

adj.令人羞辱的v.使谦恭( humble的现在分词 )；轻松打败（尤指强大的对手）；低声下气

参考例句：

• A certain humbling from time to time is good. 不时受点儿屈辱是有好处的。 来自辞典例句
• It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-buildingexperience. 据说天文学是一种令人产生自卑、塑造人格的科学。 来自互联网

11 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

12 diplomats   

n.外交官( diplomat的名词复数 )；有手腕的人，善于交际的人

参考例句：

• These events led to the expulsion of senior diplomats from the country. 这些事件导致一些高级外交官被驱逐出境。
• The court has no jurisdiction over foreign diplomats living in this country. 法院对驻本国的外交官无裁判权。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 malevolently   

参考例句：

• She watched him malevolently. 她恶意地看着他。 来自互联网
• The little woman advanced slowly with her eyes fixed malevolently on the pink paper. 那小妇人慢慢前进，眼睛恶意地盯在那张粉红钯的纸上。 来自互联网