“In Cardboard Piano, Love Persists Even When Forgiveness Cannot” - Read Nathan Pugh’s production profile and interview with Director Eliza Wilkins

Note from Nathan Pugh (Dramaturg)

In 1999 Uganda was struggling to avenge and reconcile its violent past history. While five years earlier South Africa was able to successfully end apartheid and elect Nelson Mandela, the Rwandan Genocide simultaneously occurred killing 800,000 over 100 days. Current Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni was successfully fighting the AIDS pandemic but was also making corruption and integral part of the government as the Second Congo War was ravaging over nine African countries.

Even more dangerous to Ugandan civilians, however, was the threat of internal warfare. Under the tyrannical rule of president Idi Amin during the 1970s, over 300,000 members of the Acholi ethnic group had been persecuted and killed. In response, Joseph Kony formed the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in 1987, a radical fundamentalist Christian insurgency which abducted and brainwashed Ugandan children into soldiers, killing thousands of civilians during the 1990s. These child soldiers were told that returning home would mean certain death, that they would be rejected from society: murdering in the army was their only way to survive.

In 2014, Uganda was still under the rule of president Museveni and terrorized by the LRA. The nation is now one of the most dangerous places in the world for LGBT citizens. In 2005 Museveni signed a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage, in 2009 a bill is proposed a death penalty for sodomy acts, and in 2013 an Anti-Homosexuality Act is passed.

The murder of gay activist David Kato and the forced outing of gay men and women through newspapers prove that living as openly gay in Uganda isn’t just liability, it’s an impossibility. And yet LGBT Ugandans exist anyway, finding refuge in online communities or living closeted in isolated rural families.

 Although they might not have a direct correlation, the homophobic laws and religious violence of the LRA coincide with the rising influence of American evangelical missionaries into Uganda. Along with the teachings of forgiveness, white Christian missionaries instilled into their churches a defense the “traditional” marriage and a shaming morality to discussions of sex. These ideas were absorbed by Ugandan ministers, citizens, and LRA members until they became a national attitude. As Pepe Onziema notes, “homosexuality isn’t a Western import, homophobia is the Western import.”

 In Hansol Jung’s Cardboard Piano, we see these all these forces coming together in terrifying but liberating ways. There is a freedom, but also a historical revisionism, that comes in the forgiveness of past atrocities. But just like Uganda, everyone in Cardboard Piano must struggle with how to recognize a violent past. Whether that’s by forgetting, forgiving, avenging, or healing is a choice we must make personally as well as nationally.

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Dramaturgy Presentations by Nathan Pugh and assistant director Bofta Leakemarian featured research into the history of evangelism with Uganda, the legacy of colonialism and anti-gay rhetoric in Uganda, and both LGBTQ activism and “lavender marriages” across the country. They are available upon request, through the emails npugh@wesleyan.edu OR nathanjlpugh@wesleyan.edu

 PROGRAM

CAST

Adiel/Ruth: Shanna HP
Chris: Michayla Robertson-Pine
Pika/Francis: Fitzroy Pablo Wickham
Soldier/Paul: Cameron Smith

CREW

Director: Eliza Wilkins
Assistant Director: Bofta Leakemariam
Stage Management: Teresa Naval, Karen Xu, Joanna Gerber, Shira Yeskel-Mednick
Dramaturg: Nathan Pugh
Outreach & Dramaturgical Support: Wenxuan Xue, Rodrick B Edwards
Dialect Coach: Monica Blaze Leavitt
Intimacy Choreographer: Elizabeth Woolford
Fight Choreographer: Ramsay Burgess
Fight Captain: Tessa Zitter
Makeup/Special Effects: Emma Richmond
Makeup Assistants: Andrea Aware, Avery Rose Pedell
Light Designer: Gabriel Ballard
Assistant Light Designer: Amaal Ladha
Master Electrician: Joaquina Guevara
Set Designer: Maya Hayda
Master Carpenter: Max Johnson
Carpenter: Capri Gehred-O'Connell
Sound Designer: Kira Newmark
Costumes: Kathryn Lopez
Props: Hongyuan Henry Yang
Publicity: Shuyuan Liu
Poster: Karen Xu
Light Board Operator: Joanna Gerber
Sound Board Operator: Shira Yeskel-Mednick
Production Assistant: Sophie Green

MUSIC

Music Director: Olivia Lopez
Music Director: Ayan Zamil
Vocal Director: Tessa Zitter
Composer: Rebecca Roff
Violin: Yudai Miyamoto
Violin: Sophia Andreadis
Percussion: Nola Nelson

Special Thanks to… Jeff Wilkins, Hansol Jung, Lexy Leuszler, O’Neill Lit 2018 (Helena, Alix, Libby, Isabel, Raffi, Bryan) Wenxuan Xue, Performing Asian Transnationalism Forum (Nathan, Esme, Shu, Amira, Henry), Rodrick Edwards, Kira Newmark, Elizabeth Woolford, Aby Crystal, Claudia Schatz, Lily Saint, Christine Scarfuto, Monica Blaze Leavitt, Jenny Peek, Michael Freiburger, Kriti Narayanan, Nathan Mullen, Olivia Gracey, Adelphic Educational Fund, Second Shades

For, and from, Donna Wilkins

Originally produced by Actors Theater of Louisville, KY dir. Leigh Silverman
Cardboard Piano is presented through special arrangement with Samuel French.