PRESS RELEASES
Human Rights Play Performs in Doha in Aid of ROTA Charity Drive
17 October 2006
A "one-night-only" performance of Ariel Dorfman's play Speak Truth to Power: Voices From Beyond the Dark - celebrating human rights defenders from around the world - was presented by Reach Out To Asia (ROTA) as part of the run-up to its 2nd Gala Dinner charity event.
As part of its 10th anniversary celebrations, Al Jazeera Network partnered with ROTA in bringing this much-acclaimed play to the Middle East for the first time.
Speak Truth to Power: Voices From Beyond the Dark, is a theatrical production written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and novelist Ariel Dorfman. It was adapted from a book written by veteran human rights advocate Kerry Kennedy and is based on inspiring interviews and stories of courage gathered over a two-year period by Ms Kennedy.
It chronicles the struggles of 51 activists, including the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel, Helen Prejean, and many other lesser known people who have been championing human rights the world over.
Actors portraying these individual human rights defenders tell their stories of torture and despair, of agony and hope, and of overcoming overwhelming odds against authoritarian rulers.
The play has been performed at theatres across America and around the world, including Geneva, London, Helsinki, Athens, Madrid, Rome, and Sydney but the production in Qatar was the first ever time it has been performed in Arabic (with live translation available in English and French).
The cast list was a Who's Who of Arabic actors and actresses including Safia Al Emari, Kathem Al Saher, Carmen Lebbos, Lotfi Boshnaq, Khalid Al Sheikh, Suad Al Abdullah, Raghda, Mahmoud Yaseen, Jamal Slaiman, Saad Al Kharji, and Qatar's Ghanim Al Sulaiti. The play was directed by Lebanon's Raif Karam.
When the curtain rose at Qatar National Theatre, seated in the audience were 12 of the activists featured in the play, as well as its creators - Ariel Dorfman, Kerry Kennedy and the book's editor, Nan Richardson.
The evening commenced with the exclusive performance of a song by Kathem Al Saher as a tribute to the children of his home country, Iraq.
An exhibition of powerful photographs taken by the late Eddie Adams accompanied the play and were on display for two months. Adams was a renowned photojournalist and the recipient of over 500 awards in photography, including the Pulitzer Prize for his picture of a Saigon police chief's assassination of a Vietcong prisoner, taken during the Vietnam War.
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Kerry Kennedy and the human rights activists at the opening of the Speak Truth to Power photo exhibition in Landmark Mall.