Quaker speaks truth to power
Glasgow Friends to mark Refugee Week 2014 with a production of 'Speak Truth to Power'
Quaker actor and director Mark Coleman and Glasgow Friends are marking next week’s Refugee Week with a production of Ariel Dorfman’s Speak Truth to Power. The play will be first workshopped and then performed on 21 June. Mark will direct the play and lead the workshop. ‘The phrase “speak truth to power” was first used by American Quaker Milton Mayer nearly sixty years ago as the title of a pamphlet suggesting a new approach to the cold war,’ Mark explained to the Friend.
‘It has come to describe any challenge or opposition by individuals or groups toward governments and other institutional forms of power on a wide range of issues.’
Dorfman’s play uses the testimonies of fifty activists from around the world currently working in the field of human rights. Mark described the stories as ‘profoundly human’, adding that this means that they belong to every single one of us.
‘The ten actors (professional and non-professional, Quakers and non-Quakers) will stage the drama like a Quaker Meeting. Actors will be dotted among the audience, standing when it is their cue to speak,’ said Mark.
All profits from the performance will go to Refugee Scotland. Entry is by donation.
Refugee Week 2014 runs from 16-22 June. This year’s theme is children and young people. Events across the country include an international women’s group picnic in Ipswich and a vigil for climate refugees in London.
