Jackie Sibblies Drury was born and raised in Plainfield, New Jersey. She attended Yale University, where she earned a degree in English Literature in 2003. While she originally intended to pursue a career in acting, she began to write plays post-graduation and eventually attended Brown University to earn her MFA in Playwriting, which she received in 2010. Since then, she has been based in Brooklyn, New York. While her body of work is small, her plays beautifully address themes of race, empathy, history, and humanity.

Synopsis:

In this warped version of a play-within-a play, 6 actors, 3 white, 3 Black, struggle to create a presentation about the “first genocide of the 20th century,” the Herero tribe, who were controlled and ultimately killed by German regime between 1884-1915. The problem is, the only sources they have from this time is a collection of love letters written by a German soldier addressed to their lover back home. As the actors struggle to tell the story of the loss of the Herero tribe they clash over a multitude of topics, including racial identity, appropriation, ancestry, and the question of how to honor history if it is only recorded through the eyes of the aggressor. Trigger Warning: Extreme Violence scenes depicting lynching

How it can be used:

This play is definitely for mature audiences, so keeping it in high school/college classrooms is appropriate. This play would be useful for history classrooms to use as an example of the dangers of teaching historical events through texts that have been written by oppressing groups, as much of American history has been written. It might also be useful for playwriting students to investigate the style of meta-theatre.

Discussion Questions:

• What were your first impressions of the theatre-within-theatre style of this play? Did it throw you off or help you to stay engaged within the “rehearsal process” of the actors?

• Jackie has said that her “favorite thing is to point something out, ask a couple questions and then just leave and let people work it out.” What questions do you think this play presents to audiences, and are those questions answered?

• What do you think of the choice to have this be a somewhat comedic play? Do you think it lessens the severity of the topic being discussed, in this case the Herero genocide?

Sample Activity: Creating a “Presentation”

• Pre Activity: Have students pick a historical event in which there has been an oppressing group and an oppressed group, and prepare primary sources from both groups involved.

• Separate the class into two groups, both tasked with creating a five-minute presentation about said historical event, but provide one group with primary sources written only by the oppressor, and provide the other group with sources written only by the oppressed. The second group should be provided with less sources, which should vary depending on the material found.

• Students should believe they have been provided with the same materials.

• Have the groups present their account of this event, with the oppressing group going first.

• Post-presentation discussion should center around the differences between the presentations. Were the “facts” the same in both? How might our interpretations of this event differ depending on what recorded history we are consuming? Was it difficult for the oppressed group to create this presentation because of lack of resources? Was it easy for the oppressing group? Did this play/activity make them think about how history has been taught to them thus far?