The Ethics of
Incomprehension
Maria Kizito
Source note
• Breed, Ananda. “Performing the Nation: Theatre in
Post-Genocide Rwanda.” TDR 52.1 (2008): 32-50.
Two types of theatre for
reconciliation
• “legendary theatre” – which “reflects government-driven
information campaigns based on carefully-scripted
history” (47). This kind of theatre is like propaganda, but
for social “good”: it attempts to imagine a society in
which ethnic factions and separate ethnic identities
(Tutsi, Hutu, Twa – the three ethic groups that make up
Rwanda) disappear under the myth of “one Rwanda”
• “grassroots theatre” – which “illustrates the potential of
theatre for reconciliation. Survivors and perpetrators use
theatre to unite their community; dancing, singing, and
acting together have enabled them to forge new
relationships, and to reconcile and heal themselves” (47).
Maria Kizito
 Why do you think Ehn has written the play in such a cryptic
form? What do you think he is trying to?
• “Maria Kizito doesn’t seek to explain the source of the
genocide or to fix blame. It attempts to enter into the inner
life of a perpetrator” (Ehn 178, e/m)
• “The play is meant not as an explanation – not even as a
condemnation. … It’s meant to provide a space of time
in which we can be with Maria. I try not to judge her
guilt. I try to let us be with her in her guilt” (Ehn, qtd in
Edmondson 70, e/m)
Source note
• Edmondson, Laura. “Genocide Unbound: Erik Ehn,
Rwanda, and an Aesthetics of Discomfort.” Theatre
Journal 61 (2009): 65-83. Online.
“Hallucinatory realism”
• “What interests me about Maria Kizito is how the play
employs ‘hallucinatory realism’ […] which embraces the
tension between poetry and fact, nightmare and reality”
(Edmondson 69).
• “We are never tossed a single shred of information
concerning [Maria’s] background, information that
might contextualize her actions in the tradition of realism
and naturalism. […] [S]he hovers between detail and
murk” (70).
• “Through fusing the materiality of fact and the excess of
poetry, Ehn creates a glimpse of this incomprehensible
yet specific world [of the genocide]” (71).
Gains + Losses
• ON ONE HAND, the strategy of “hallucinatory
realism” allows Ehn to move readers and viewers toward
the “unspeakable” and “unseeable” aspects of genocide.
In other words, his poetics are a strategy to make what is
invisible in genocide visible (very similar to Gambaro!).
• BUT, ON THE OTHER HAND, this strategy also risks
provoking confusion, uncertainty, and anxiety for readers
and viewers who struggle to follow along. In this, he runs
into the same challenges as Suzan-Lori Parks in Venus:
alienating the audiences who may need him most!
The ethics of incomprehensibility
Edmondson writes:
• “But what are the ethics of incomprehensibility, given
that survivors must confront the forces of genocide
denial?
• What does it mean to blur the lines between ‘fact’ and
‘poetry’ when the facts are so precious in an unmodified
form?”
(quotations from web version of the article)