Rehearsed Reading:
Maud Sulter ‘Service to Empire’

Online Broadcast with the National Galleries of Scotland & Adura Onashile

Monday 28 November, 6-7.30pm

Free, All Welcome - Click Here For Tickets

In a unique live broadcast, National Galleries Scotland present the first abridged rehearsed reading from the play by Maud Sulter, Service to Empire. Directed and abridged by Adura Onashile and co-curated with Mother Tongue. The reading will be followed by a live Q&A.

Best known as an artist and poet, Sulter wrote Service to Empire, published with her imprint A19 in 2002. In this play she reimagines the relationship between the parents of Jerry Rawlings: his father was a Scot, his mother Ghanaian. Exploring long-lasting colonial legacies across two continents, Sulter considered her play as providing ‘an incisive observation of the explosive reverberations’ of their affair and its impact on Ghana’s former President (in office 1979-2002). Since the play was written 20 years ago, it has never been performed. This reading is long overdue bringing to light the work of this internationally renowned artist.

With Art Fund support and funded by The National Lottery through Creative Scotland, with generous input from the Estate of Maud Sulter. Maud Sulter, Service to Empire, 2002 © The Estate of Maud Sulter, 2022. Abridged and Directed by Adura Onashile (2022). With kind permission of the Estate of Maud Sulter.

Maud Sulter (1960-2008) was a contemporary fine artist, photographer, writer and curator of Ghanaian and Scottish heritage who lived and worked in Britain. She was a writer, poet, academic, curator and photographer.

Adura Onashile is an award-winning Glasgow based actor, writer, and director whose work is known to Scottish audiences. She has worked with the National Theatre of Scotland, The Lyceum, The National, The Royal Shakespeare Company and The Young Vic.

Cast

Big Man John Paul McCole

Madam Victoria Michelle Chantelle Hopewell

Kweku Chinedu Igu

Bonnie Stephanie McGregor

John John/JJ Benjamin Osugo

Director Adura Onashile

Abridged by Adura Onashile

Cinematographer Basharat Khan

Edited Basharat Khan

Sound Engineer Scott Walker

Sound Design Claudia Vasiliu

Costume Design Sam Wood/ Palimpsest

Image: Maud Sulter, La Chevelure, Cibachrome Prints, 2002. Collection of the National Galleries of Display, Currently on display at the Scottish National portrait Gallery.