We are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884 - 1915

Jackie Sibblies Drury

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781350146402
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350146426
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Drama

"Impressively navigates the tricky boundaries that separate art and life, the haunted present and the haunting historical past.." New York Times

A group of actors gather to tell the little-known story of the first genocide of the twentieth century. As the full force of a horrific past crashes into the good intentions of the present, what seemed a far-away place and time is suddenly all too close to home. Just whose story are they telling?

Pulitzer Prize award-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury collides the political with the personal in a play that is irreverently funny and seriously brave.
We Are Proud To Present . . . premiered off-Broadway at Soho Rep in 2012.

This new Modern Classics edition features an introduction by Leonor Faber-Jonker.

Prologue

Intro, Lecture, Lecture/Presentation, Presentation

Actor 6 enters.

Actor 6 Sorry. We’re all ready?

She greets the audience, probably with some warmth and casualness, definitely with some nervousness.

Actor 5 hands her a stack of note cards.

Actor 6 Great.

She glances at the cards, retrieves a pen and crosses ‘Greet audience’ off the list:

Actor 6 (to herself ) Greet audience. Fire speech.

She gives the fire speech, complete with cell-phone speech, etc.

Actor 6 (to herself ) Fire speech. Special announcements.

She makes any special announcements. She probably reads them off her papers/cards. If there are no theatre-related special announcements, perhaps there is a drinks offer at a nearby bar? A sale at the store down the street?

Actor 6 (To herself.) Special announcements. Ok.

She reads a prepared speech. She also interrupts herself to clarify, talking directly to the audience. The lines that are read are italicized, the parts that are said are not.

Actor 6 Hello. Thank you for coming.

Oh, I already did that.

Welcome to our presentation.

We have prepared a lecture to proceed the presentation because we feel that you would benefit from some background information so as to give our presentation a greater amount of context.

Yeah. Ok, so, the lecture’s a lecture but it’s not a lecture

lecture.

We made it fun.

Ish.

Sort of.

Anyway.

The lecture’s duration should last approximately five minutes.

It might be ten. I’m bad at time.

Because, you know, what’s happening is the important thing, it doesn’t matter when it happens, or how long it happens for, it’s that it’s happening. Am I right?

(Nervous laugh.)

This is happening.

(Nervous laugh.)

Ok.

In this lecture – Um . . . Wait, what?

(She flips through the cards.)

Actor 5 might try to feed her the lines.

Actor 6 Ok.

(To the ensemble and the audience at the same time.)

‘We’ forgot to write in the part ‘we’ agreed ‘we’d’ write about the overview.

So . . .

(To the audience.)

Ok. So, there’s like a lecture that’s only sort of a lecture and then we did this thing that is kind of like an overview before the lecture, which is before the presentation.

Does that make sense?

Ok.

Yeah . . .

I think I’m just going to skip some of this stuff, you know, since it seems it doesn’t actually say what we all agreed that it should say. Even though we went through a lot to figure out how to do this and introduce it properly, but this introduction isn’t what it’s supposed to be so . . .

This is what we’re doing: Lecture, Overview, Presentation.

Super fun, great.

(To herself.) Skip skip skip.

Helping me to present the lecture to you is our ensemble of actors. Our ensemble of actors:

Actor 1 I’m an actor.

Actor 2 I’m an actor.

Actor 3 I’m an actor.

Actor 4 I’m an actor.

Actor 5 I’m an / actor.

Actor 6 And I am an actor.

Actors 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Hello.

Actor 6 I’m also kind of the artistic director of our ensemble, so. Okay.

In this presentation, which has already started, I know, I will be playing the part of Black Woman. I am also black, in real life, which you might find confusing. Please try to think of it like this: Blac...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Introduction
• We Are Proud to Present a Presentation about the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, from the German Sudwestafrika, between the Years 1884 and 1915
• Empathy By Another name
• Acknowledgements
• We Are Proud to Present
• Prologue
• Addendum