Review: (Montreal) State of Denial

Docu...Drama

Rahul Varma confronts the big issues again

by Chris Lane

Denial comes in many forms, and can effectively erase the memories of the oppressed victims of atrocities untold. Local playwright Rahul Varma seeks to uncover the personal stories that have been suppressed and present them in a stark and moving new play, State of Denial. The production is presented by Teesri Duniya, of which Varma is Artistic Director, a theatre company with a 31-year history of  politically relevant plays that depict diverse aspects of Canada’s cultural minorities. 

In writing this play, Varma derived a fictional story from multiple true stories garnered from years of interviews as a part of the research for Life Stories of Montrealers Displaced by Genocide, War and Other Human Rights Violations. State of Denial is being presented as a part of Life Stories Montreal and is directed by Deborah Forde.

First-Person - Rahul Varma on State of Denial

State of Denial: In memories of grandmothers who lived to tell 

© Rahul Varma, March 11, 2012

State of Denial is about Sahana, a Turkish Muslim woman in her nineties, who has devoted her life to assisting Armenian survivors of genocide, and about Odette, a twenty something Rwanda-born Canadian filmmaker, who travels to Turkey to investigate stories of genocide. These two women differ in their nationality, ethnicity, religion, cultural background and age – but they have one thing in common: A well-kept personal secret, which if uncovered, will change their life forever. Initially, the two women are suspicious of each other. They question and quiz, comply and compete, and challenge and contradict each other – and in so doing, they become the best of the friends. On her deathbed, Sahana reveals her chilling secret to Odette and Odette promises to make Sahana’s secret public at any cost. On her mission to make public Sahana’s secret, Odette ends up revealing her own. With that a denial ends and a new life begins.