by S. Rotan Hale
Through the collaborative efforts of Harrison Museum, Mill Mountain Theatre (MMT), the Advanced Theatre Class of William Fleming High School (WFHS) presented “Remnants of a Broken Past” a play that delved into the tragic issue of genocide.
The production was held Saturday, April 18 at MMT in downtown Roanoke and amazingly was written by two WFHS students, Kayla Saunders and Jazmine Otey.
The thought-provoking one-act play showed the remarkable skills and sensitivity of the playwright team under the direction of the school’s theatre director Larry Van Deventer affectionately known as ‘Mr. V.’
No one is more proud of their students than Van Deventer. His passion is most pronounced through his opening comments delivered at the many productions presented during his career of over 20 years at the school.
The play was not so much about fabulous props and fantastic costumes but one designed to focus attention on the cruel horrors of genocide, a timeless plague that is to many, just another issue in the news.
For these students to focus on such a grave and abhorrent issue with the level of intensity applied and serious treatment of subject is highly commendable in itself.
The story brilliantly angles through the opening scene with 4 seemingly conscientious students, i.e. Gabby Randolph (Ruth), Sae-Von Morrow (Clark), Shea Ellis (Shanequa) and Miles Gabourel (Tyler) who are seated at a table discussing various aspects of genocide–a topic that shows the darkest side of human nature. The extinction of Native American Indians was strategically worked into the opening scene–though lightly discussed.
During opening remarks, Van Deventer set the stage pointing out several events that coincide with the play’s appropriate premier. April was a pivotal month regarding the climax of WWII and the Holocaust with events as Hitler’s suicide (April 30), the 70th Anniversary of the closing of Bergund-Belsen concentration camp and many other Third Reich death camps that were liberated around April 1944.
Various scenes in the hour-and-a-half production vividly captured the stark realities of the shocking inhuman treatment of countless victims of the Holocaust (1933-1945), Rwandan (1994) and Cambodian (1975-1978) genocides.
Graphic images (flashed on a screen) representing each horrific era, also set the stage for this eye-opening presentation that featured 3 abbreviated accounts of twisted stories based on the madness of the respective eras.
“A lot of people are unaware of these things that are really happening and we just want to share the knowledge and make people more aware,” said Otey during a Q&A that followed the play. “We want to speak for those individuals who can no longer speak for themselves,” added Saunders summing up the team’s intent to draw attention to this deeply disturbing and gruesome issue.
After citing certain atrocities that are constantly happening and flooding the news as people being beheaded and global terrorism, Van Deventer said, “As we sit here in the luxury of our immediate environment, many of our brothers and sisters, sadly enough perished and are still victims of some form of genocide.
