January 29, opening evening of Someone will remember us,, The hall of the representative of Trinity was struggling with excited voice and body warmly grouped with public members and theater staff. It was the night of the press after a week of previews, and some of the people interviewed in the play showed up to look and celebrate after the performance of 90 minutes with sparkling cider, champagne and cookies.
The atmosphere was positive but discreet. Very white from New England. The members of the public were inaugurated in the Dowling theater of Trinity RP by polished bailiffs. The lights of the house have carved out and a silence came on the crowd. Columbus and Kate Liberman, executive director of the theater, went on stage to welcome the public and make announcements.
“It seems particularly poignant to make this play right now,” said Libeman of the Robin's-Egg-And-Navy-Blue striped scene designed by Tanya Orella. Above the square boxes suspended by Liberman painted like clouds by the lighting designer Emma Deane, who lit up during the show to display the names of the locations through New England and the world that the room is referring. Liberman alluded, without naming, the changes that occurred this week due to the executive orders that President Trump issued after taking office on January 20.
In particular, on January 23, Trump signed an executive decree suspending federal funding for Dei's initiatives. Someone will remember usThe community partners of the operation, Operation Rhode Island and the Refugee Dream Center, depended on federal funding of the DEI to support their communities. That day, on January 29, Trump had signed an executive decree suspending federal funding for refugee resettlement agencies. Said Liberman of the scene that evening: “The Dream Center lost its federal funding.”
Columbus and Liberman continued to inform the public, as neutral as possible, as Trinity Rep is supported by federal funds through the National endowment for artsAnd that without this support Someone will remember us could not exist. Although the financing of the arts had not been directly targeted by the Trump administration at that time, Columbus and Liberman simply encouraged the public of the opening evening to consider what it would mean for Trinity REP to lose its federal funding. (The funds of this show were completely reimbursed by the NEA before the administration Recent mass cancellation of artistic subsidies) Then the performance started.
Sara (elegantly described by Jihan Haddad), an Iraqi who emigrated to New England, summed up the connection that people feel for their houses torn by war on a single line: “No matter what your country makes you pass … There is always a place in your heart for that.”
Though Sara was Referring to the Bread of Being Forced to Leave Iraq During the Conflict, the Trom of Her Words from 20 Years Ago resonated with the Bread and Uncertainty of Current-Day Americans who Find Themselves in the Crosshairs of the Trump Administration's Policies Targeting Our Citizens, Many of them represents, Often Intersectionally, in the Trinity Rep Audience That Eventing: Women, People of Color, LGBTQ+ Community Members, The Disabled Community, and Immigrants. We love our country even if it is not easy to do it.
The emotional and psychological assessment of war is universal through eons, just like the desire for love and peace. Smith told me an interview with Kamal, an Iraqi refugee, who told the creators of the show how he had fled his house in Bashiqa, in Iraq, with only his phone, his graduation documents (to prove his training), his master thesis on love in the former Greek poet Sapho Sapho Sapho The works and clothes in his back.
“Charlie and I found this so moving: both what Kamal appreciated the most to grasp at this time of crisis, but also what he studied and explored in his thesis,” said Smith. Indeed, the quotation of Sappho finally led the creators to the evocative title of the program; The translation by Anne Carson of Sappho Fragment 147 is read as follows: “Someone will remember us, I say, even at another time.” As Smith said, “the line asks us: who will remember these soldiers and refugees?”
Fragment 147 is an invitation to the reader. He declares devotion. With this title, the creators Cruz, Smith and Thurston proclaimed their work as a living memory of his subjects. They started the project to remember soldiers and civilians in a disastrous war that cost thousands of Americans and hundreds of Iraqis. By looking in community with the creators, we have become guards of this memory.
Kitty Drexel (she / she) is the disabled editor and queer of The New England Theater Geek And an artist in the Boston region.
