It is 2019, the Year of Return, marking four hundred years since the first enslaved Africans arrived in America. We are at a slave castle in Ghana. Samuel is our tour guide. It's his job to give tourists a really, really authentic experience of the castle's dark history, and to do it all with a smile. Thank you, Samuel!
The tourists are Samuel's guests, and they're on a journey of self-discovery. But they're here, standing on soil, blood and bones, asking for a selfie. They want to buy trinkets from the gift shop. Samuel would never want to hurt the tourists. And they would never want to hurt him.
Rhianna Ilube's Samuel Takes a Break… in Male Dungeon No. 5 After a Long but Generally Successful Day of Tours is a genre-blending play about colonialism, identity and the attempt to preserve the past. It was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Playwriting and the Verity Bargate Award, and premiered at The Yard Theatre, London, in 2024, directed by Anthony Simpson-Pike.
