Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo
HER NAME IS Immaculée. This is what she remembers of the place she called home.
“I was born in paradise. At least that’s how I felt about my homeland while I was growing up.
“Rwanda is a tiny country set like a jewel in Central Africa. She is so breathtakingly beautiful that it’s impossible not to see the hand of God in her lush rolling hills; mist-shrouded mountains; green valleys; and sparkling lakes.”
Her name is Immaculée. This is what she remembers of those terrifying days in her blood-drenched paradise that lay in ruins.
“I heard the killers call my name. They were on the other side of the wall, and less than an inch of plaster and wood separated us. Their voices were cold, hard, and determined.
“’She’s here…we know she’s here somewhere….Find her—find Immaculée.’”
Those are excerpts from the book “Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust” by Immaculée Ilibagiza (with Steve Erwin). The book was on the New York Times bestseller list. (“The Diary of Immaculée ” is on DVD. )
This July, Immaculée came alive at The Insular Life Theater in the heart-stopping “Miracle in Rwanda”, a one-woman play based on her true story. Created and performed by Leslie Lewis-Sword, the play has been staged more than 100 times in more than a dozen cities and countries. Lewis-Sword is half Filipino, half African-American.
Lewis-Sword did not base “Miracle” on the book alone. She went out of her way to know Immaculée personally and traveled a number of times to Rwanda in order to deepen her grasp of what Immaculée and her paradise had gone through.
As a one-woman play (one hour and five minutes), “Miracle” is a miracle in itself, what with Lewis-Sword playing Immaculée and a host of other characters. How it was staged here, is also a miracle, according to executive producer Roger Saldo Chua, a theater veteran.
The only props in the play are the pictures of the dead members of Immaculée’s family hanging prominently on stage and the masking tape on the floor that signifies the rectangular area (a few feet square of bathroom space) where Immaculée and seven other women hide for 91 days from the murderous machete-wielding Hutus.
Everything else is light, sound and pure acting. And on the part of the audience, imagination and emotion.
The play begins with the plane of Rwanda’s Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana shot down in April 1994. His fellow Hutu tribesmen take this as a cue to exterminate their enemy tribe, the Tutsis. The Hutus and the Tutsis have been engaged in a civil war for some time. And so as the world watches, the most brutal genocide in recent history begins.
In just three months, almost a million people are killed. It is in this setting that the “miraculous” story of Immaculée unfolds. Coming from a devoted Catholic and educated Tutsi family, Immaculée, along with seven other women, hides in a cramped bathroom in the home of a Protestant pastor who happens to be a Hutu.
Lewis-Sword steps out of the rectangular space only when she plays the other characters. When she becomes the murderous Hutus hunting down Immaculée, she howls, yelps, prances and goes into a dervish. She also acts as her father, the compassionate pastor, the person responsible for the death of the members of her family and several other characters. What a feat for one actor. And she speaks with a Rwandan accent.
“Miracle” focuses on this harrowing episode in Immaculée’s life. Her experience may look small in the context of the big bloodbath in Rwanda but it tells a lot. Through Lewis-Sword’s deft storytelling and acting in a few square feet of bathroom space, with an imaginary toilet bowl and all, the bigger Rwandan landscape is revealed.
But it is also in the cramped hiding place that one gets to know Immaculée up close. Through her musings she reveals her heart of hearts, her faith in God, her expansive mind, her dreams and even her sense of humor. Armed with a rosary and reciting Hail Marys and Our Fathers incessantly, Immaculée clings to her childhood faith and prays for deliverance. But could she ever forgive?
The subtitle of the play says, “the miracle is forgiveness”. Immaculée forgives. She shows how forgiveness redeems and heals and makes persons whole again. She is forgiveness personified. How I wish the play devoted just a little more to this toward the end. Suddenly it was all over.
What the script could not cover, Lewis-Sword tackled during the question-answer after the play. Amazing how her accent could swiftly shift from Rwandan to American. She spoke about Rwanda, how she and husband Gavin Sword adopted two Rwandan children, a girl and a boy. There is no mistaking her love affair with Rwanda.
She spoke about her friend Immaculée who is now happily settled in the US, married, with two children.
“Miracle in Rwanda” played 10 times last week. The gala night was co-sponsored by The Lewis College of Sorsogon which was founded by Lewis-Sword’s mother. Lewis-Sword is the older daughter of Filipino lawyer Loida Nicolas-Lewis and the late African-American businessman and philanthropist Reginald F. Lewis.
A social studies graduate (cum laude) of Harvard University, Lewis-Sword has an MA in Fine Art (Acting) from the University of California in Los Angeles. She has acted in many plays, “The Vagina Monologues” among them.
Lewis-Sword has brought “Miracle in Rwanda” to many places in order to raise funds for children who were orphaned during the 1994 genocide. Her efforts have reaped citations.
Immaculée ends her book with these words: “The love of a single heart can make a world of difference. I believe that we can heal Rwanda—and our world---by healing one heart at a time. I hope my story helps.”
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