Dave PorterThis play could not come at a more apposite moment. Next week not only marks Anti-Slavery Day but the subject of this production – abduction and enslavement in Sudan – comes at a time when the sub-Saharan country has been plunged into yet another conflict, with many girls and women the victim of modern-day slavery.
It has to be said that Slave is not an easy watch, recounting as it does the abduction of Mende Nazer from her family home in the Nuba mountains of Sudan when she was a young girl in the 1990s. Taken by the Mujahideen, she is subjected to physical and sexual assault and sold into slavery to a ‘devout’ Arab Muslim family where she works unremittingly to look after their children and keep home.
Used and abused in her new domestic setting, Mende loses contact with her beloved family, fearing they have all been killed in the brutal raid on her village.
The first half of the play tracks Mende’s life and idyllic childhood in Sudan, where she hopes to become a doctor and where she is cosseted as the baby of the family. She is abducted along with her best friend and trafficked to Khartoum where she is ‘bought’ by a family and enslaved for the next eight years.
She has now become the ‘property’ of a tyrannical wife and mother who mercilessly beats her for the slightest infringement. Mende is left to eat the scraps off the family table once everyone else has finished eating.
There is some fine ensemble acting in this production by Feelgood Theatre, with notable performances from Yolanda Ovide as Mende, Joseph Jordan as journalist Damien Lewis who brought the country’s attention to Mende’s plight, and Sara Faraj as Rahab, Mende’s ‘master’ in Khartoum.
The second half of the play recounts Mende’s life after she is tracked into the UK to stay with a diplomatic family. Again, she is imprisoned within the family home but manages to make contact with the outside world and makes a dramatic bid for freedom and away from her tormentors. But Mende’s challenges are not over yet and she is confined to a grim asylum centre after applying for refugee status in the UK.
Her application is initially refused because slavery was not at that time recognised as a form of persecution. It is only after Damien mounts a campaign on her behalf, taking in MPs and Lords, that Mende is finally granted the freedom and liberty she has so long craved.
Mende managed to secure her dream of becoming a medic and wrote a book about her journey to freedom, on which this production is based. Later on, we learn that her family survived the raid.
On the opening night, Mende was herself in the audience and made an emotional appearance on stage at the end of the performance, paying tribute to the cast in bringing her story to life so vividly – and the story of countless others around the world who are victims of modern slavery.
Now based in the US and an anti-slavery campaigner, Mende’s remarkable story is one of resilience and courage.
Slave: A Question of Freedom is at The Lowry, Salford from 9-12 October 2024. Age recommendation 10+
Steve Timms
Carmel Thomason
Liz Ratcliffe