He Speaks the Truth

Six months ago, Ariel Dorfman received a phone call from human rights activist Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, who asked him to write a play. At that point, he had no idea that the first performance of Speak Truth to Power: Voices From Beyond the Dark, scheduled for this Tuesday at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., would be introduced by President Clinton.

To make Speak Truth to Power (originally a book), Kennedy Cuomo collected testimonials of human rights violations from all over the world, including pieces by former sex slave and abolitionist Juliana Dogbadzi of Ghana, domestic violence activist Marina Pisklakova of Russia and Pakistani human rights lawyer Hina Jilani. After seeing several of Dorfman's plays and reading his poetry, Kennedy Cuomo decided to approach him to adapt the book's 250 pages into a 50-minute show.

Dorfman explains that he did his best to give the text "a certain aesthetic permanence." Avoiding the pitfalls of being too propagandistic, optimistic or boring, he fashioned the testimonials into what he calls "a cantata or oratorio, a symphonic tapestry that weaves in all the voices." He compares the result to a morality play and calls it "baroque in structure."

As a Chilean author who lived through the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile and in the United States, Dorfman felt uniquely qualified for the task, having both the necessary skills as a dramatist a well as the sensitivity to deal with such explosive material.

"It seems as if these [writers of testimonials] were my brothers and sisters; I know what they have been through," he said, adding that he thinks he has the right combination of familiarity and respect to do their narratives justice.

In selecting from the texts offered in Kennedy Cuomo's book and additional stories that did not make it into that volume, Dorfman tried to distill the most dramatic moments. Still, he cautions that he did not only want scenes where writers were being hurt but also humorous episodes. He restricted himself to one event from each region, forcing him to choose between those of lawyer and nun Digna Ochoa and the legislator Patria Jimenez, both from Mexico. He also faced tough choices when editing stories of people he knows, such as Jose Zalaquett, who he has known since the age of 16 and calls "practically my best friend."

Dorfman says that the main goal of Speak Truth to Power is "moving people and creating consciousness." The events surrounding the premiere will certainly help achieve that goal. First, a show will open at the Corcoran in Washington, D.C., with portraits of celebrated personalities such as Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic, Helen Prejean of the United States and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. Second, Kennedy Cuomo will release the book of Speak Truth To Power, which contains 51 testimonials. Finally, the premiere of Dorfman's piece will be attended by 42 of the book's writers.

However, the greatest impact of Speak Truth to Power: Voices from Beyond the Dark may well lie in the future. As part of the project, the play will be performed free of charge in 10,000 schools across the United States, along with prologues by Dorfman and Kennedy Cuomo and information on how to get involved in human rights work. With information like this, perhaps the next generation of Americans will be more aware of human rights abuses than the present one.