Theater
On the occasion of Human Rights Day
10.12.2024, 19:30
Schauspielhaus
Porzellangasse 19, 1090 Wien
The Swedish-Eritrean journalist, playwright and writer Dawit Isaak has been imprisoned in Eritrea for 23 years without trial and without contact to the outside world, presumably in a container. A victim of the most massive press freedom in a country where human rights violations are the norm.
In his monologue, Roth allows us to share Dawit's fears, longings, doubts, hunger for life, homesickness and hope for normality. Dawit is trapped in a hellish circle of tormenting thoughts.
Roth's writing is powerful and his text meanders through the emotions. He uses the tools of reportage and surreal (imaginary) dialogue, and draws on Astrid Lindgren's wonderful poem IF I WERE GOD as a mantra to come to terms with Dawit's fate.
Roth and Dawit confront the monstrous century with its text, by letting Dawit say: ‘I live, if you want to call it life. Just a spark of life, not hope, not hope, it's defiance. This spark cannot be extinguished, it is my DNA, you can't break it.’