Review: (Montreal / Theatre) Blind

(photo : Mitindo Primary Tanzania) 

Lush, imaginative exploration of harsh reality and cultural differences
Blind raises myriad questions surrounding treatment of people with albinism in Africa
by Sarah Deshaies

The audience is seated, and the house lights are up, but so are the lights trained on the stage. The sounds of birds and other animals cooing and clicking echoes through the venue (Montreal arts interculturels). Meanwhile, actors walk the stage, warming up in the way that they do: traipsing through the set, stretching, mumbling, making playful sounds to limber up their mouths and lungs. 

This was the first 10 minutes or so of Blind’s first Saturday showing, and it was a slow and methodical build to the enterprising story about to unfold. 

Sunday Feature: First-Person - Lindsay Wilson on Blind

Beyond Documentary
by Lindsay Wilson

Lindsay Wilson is a graduate of the Ryerson Theatre School in Toronto, Ontario and recently completed her M.A. in Creative Writing at Concordia University. She works as an actor, writer and director. Past projects include directing Final Girl at The Freestanding Room in 2012 and co-directing and re-mounting Jesus Jell-O: The Miraculous Confection - winner of the Montreal Fringe 2010 Mainline Award - at Mainline Theatre in Montreal in early December 2010. Her play Puck Bunny, presented during the 2009 Montreal and Toronto Fringe Festivals, was selected for the Long-Distance Dramaturgy Project with She Said Yes! Theatre in Newfoundland for its 2009 – 2010 season. She worked for two years as an invited artist with The Witchcraft Project, an interdisciplinary project at Concordia University. Ms Wilson was awarded a Conseils des arts et lettres du Québec grant for research and development, as well as a grant from the Cole Foundation’s Intercultural Conversations programme,  for her show Blind,  about witchcraft-related albino killings in Tanzania. 

“Retaining their role of storyteller, figurehead at the prow of memory. The legacy will otherwise be lost - night after night, wave upon wave, the whispers take up the tale, even before the child can understand, even before she finds her words of light, before she speaks in her turn and so that she will not speak alone...” - Assia Djebar (Trans. Dorothy S. Blair.)

There are so many factors that go into offering aid to another country; almost as many as go into telling stories. Especially when the stories are from a culture not your own. In ‘Blind’ I chose to write about the murders of people with albinism in East Africa. I am born-and-raised Canadian. In getting to know more about the context behind the attacks, I came to better understand the politics in the region, the culture, and the many stories that exist about witchcraft and people with albinism. Myths abound: albinos are not human; they disappear when they die; they are born this way because they have been cursed by their ancestors - these are a few, and there are many more. They are targeted because it is believed by some that albino body parts hold magical powers. These myths differ depending on the area of the country you are in but they have existed for a very long time. 

‘Blind’ began when Alison Darcy and I were asked to create a short piece based on the subject of witchcraft. Alison brought in some photos to share; one of which caught my attention. It was a photo with a blind child at the centre of the photograph surrounded by other students, most of whom were children with albinism. I was curious about the blind child. I was curious about his voice, and how he might make sense of the stories of the students around him. After some research I came to understand that the children I saw in the photograph were targets for corrupt traditional healers who wanted to cull their body parts and sell them for money. The children were at this school in an effort on the part of the Tanzanian government to make sure they were safe and accounted for. The reason for this? There are over 100,000 people with albinism in Tanzania. There has been an increase of attacks on people with albinism since 2000. Many attacks still go unreported. Children are among the most vulnerable.