Wednesday 24 April 2019

The Rivonia Trial Tribunal Play - R & D for the play


In conjunction with the Liliesleaf UK and the Joel Joffe Trust, playwright Matthew Hahn will be creating a tribunal play based on the Rivonia Trial transcripts. 

In the research and development phase, Matthew will be working to edit and condense over 300 hours of transcripts into a 90 minute play. 

A 'tribunal play' is a verbatim play edited from the transcripts of court proceedings.  The Tricycle Theatre in north London was a leading producer of such plays as The Colour of Justice, Nuremberg and Justifying War to name just a few.  This play will be an edited version (down to 90 minutes or so) of the entire trial using the exact words spoken in the court. Similar to my other play, The Robben Island Shakespeare, in the sense of using the men's real words and adding very little of my own writing.