Qendra Multimedia presents:

WHITE PEOPLE
By: Steven Leigh Morris
Directed by: Besim Ugzmajli
Actors: Shpëtim Selmani, Verona Koxha, Bujar Ahmeti

Art director: Mentor Berisha / Costumes: Njomza Luci / Music: Memli Kelmendi / Translator: Qerim Ondozi / Light: Yann Perregaux / Ass. director: Sovran Ndrecaj / Sound: Bujar Bekteshi / Logistic support: Adem Salihu, Lulzim Rexha, Mursel Bekteshi / Coordination & diffusion: Blerta Neziraj, Flaka Rrustemi, Aurela Kadriu, Jeton Neziraj

Premiere: 24 & 25 May, 2024. ODA Theatre, Pristina

About the production: 

At a semi-professional theater in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the organization’s long-standing artistic director, Lewis, is directing and starring in a production of Shakespeare’s King Lear – a play that’s something like “Cinderella,” about a king who chooses to retire and yields his estate to two of his three daughters who flatter the foolish king to his liking.

Lewis is White, and for the past several decades, under his leadership, he has been steward to productions of plays mostly by White British, European and American playwrights, not fully considering that his theater is situated in an African-American neighborhood, and was built on the rubble of Black Wall Street, a racial massacre by White vigilantes against a thriving African-American neighborhood, over a century ago.

As they all rehearse, scenes from the play, there are two central issues. First, Because Lewis has cast Cordelia’s vile sisters with People-of-Color, while Cordelia the Virtuous is White, it dawns on Lewis that his legacy production could easily be construed as racist. Can he replace Priscilla with a Person-of-Color without his theater being charged with “wokeness” in the middle of a Red State. And how does Progressive Priscilla cope with the prospect of being replaced for entirely racial reasons? The other issue is that Lewis is dying of cancer. He understands after a visit from the Angel of Death, that he will live only until the production opens. What is giving him life is what will end his life.

His fellow actors plead with him to postpone the opening, they contrive reasons to push back the inevitable opening night, but Lewis the Liberal is nothing if not determined.

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Even though the gender and racial issues spoken about in this show are geographically taking place in another context, they still reflect social and gender dynamics present in our context as well. This production comes at a time when in a conservative and traditionalist environment like the one in which we are living, diversity and new ideas for multiple gender identities and sexual orientations are vaguely understood and rooted with fear. On the other hand, with the support of mass media and social networks, racism has found more fertile ground to further expand. Among other things, the distant American drama of Oklahoma, asks our audience in Kosovo and Europe one challenging question: A Roma applies in the upcoming vacancy for the director of a public theater, his education is superior and his work portfolio much more impressive than the two other ‘White European’ applicants. What are the chances of the Roma applicant in this constellation?