For a week, Toto Kisaku was held in a darkened Congolese cell, detained for putting on plays critical of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) government. One at a time, his fellow inmates were led away to their deaths. Kisaku feared he would be executed next until he was set free by a guard who recognized him from his performances.
After fleeing with his young son, Kisaku went to the US, where this month he was granted asylum by immigration authorities.
A show based on what he endured in the DR Congo, Requiem for an Electric Chair, is scheduled to open in June at the International Festival of Art and Ideas in New Haven, Connecticut.
Photo: AP
The one-man play touches on the thoughts that raced through his mind during his imprisonment, with mannequins on stage standing in for the cellmates whose faces he could not make out in the dark.
“I want to show people what happens to people who are waiting to be executed. Two minutes before you are executed, what are you seeing? What are you thinking about the world?” he said. “How you are thinking of your family, people who love you, people who don’t love you.”
Kisaku, 39, organized theater in communities across the DR Congo and performed internationally before traveling to the US in December 2015.
His fame helped his bid for political asylum by making his case easier to document, said Sheila Hayre, a Quinnipiac University law professor who helped with his application.
She said students gathered testimony from people in other countries who spoke of his work raising awareness of corruption and abuses.
While developing his new play, Kisaku has been working at a gas station to support himself and his eight-year-old son in Middletown.
He said it was a relief to receive asylum in the US.
“When I received that letter from the US government I said: ‘OK, now I can continue my work,’” he said.
Kisaku first came to the Kinshasa’s attention a decade ago with productions on abuses by clergy members who fleeced parents by saying their children were practicing witchcraft and needed treatment.
The government was not pleased about people being encouraged to question authority and intelligence agents began hassling performers, Kisaku said.
In December 2015, he was putting on an autobiographical play that touched on dysfunction and suffering in Kinshasa, the capital of the DR Congo, when students started protesting the government of Congolese President Joseph Kabila.
He narrowly escaped being arrested by police, but was summoned and detained days later, Kisaku said.
During his seven days in prison, Kisaku said he saw some of his cellmates killed before his eyes.
He said a guard told him that he could not follow through on an order to execute him because his play was inspiring.
Kisaku said he wants his US audiences to know that immigrants come from his country not only for better economic prospects, but also to escape oppression and authoritarianism.
“When I came here, I understood the US citizen doesn’t know really what happens outside the United States,” he said.
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