What is the opposite of a lie? Is it the truth? Or is it remembering why you told the lie in the first place? Princeton senior Nadine Allache’s God Remembers Setsi refuses the authority of the written record and instead trusts repetition, breath, and critical fabulation as sites of historical survival. The play is inspired by the erased oral histories of Amazigh women, the indigenous people of North Africa. The work emerges from the recognition that what is held only in memory is always at risk of disappearance, and yet what is unrecorded is not unwitnessed. In the play, Setsi, a blinded freedom fighter, prepares for a ceremony honoring her courage. Her granddaughter unexpectedly appears with a miracle that could restore her sight. But there’s one condition: Setsi must admit the truth about the tragic day that everything went dark.
Allache, who is also directing, received an Alex Adam ’07 Award grant from the Lewis Center last summer to support both the research and writing of the play, recording, transcribing, and adapting her grandmother’s oral histories in Taqbaylit while spending ten weeks in New York City learning from and engaging with the artistic cultures of Amazigh and immigrant communities, whose histories and lived experiences have too often existed only in memory. The play supplements her thesis work as a Near Eastern Studies major and is her work in pursuit of a minor in theater.
Supported in part by the IV Fund.
Tickets & Details
The show is free and open to the public; advance tickets required.
Get tickets through University Ticketing
Reach University Ticketing by email at tixhelp@princeton.edu or by phone at 609-258-9220.
Directions
Enter the Lewis Arts complex through the main Forum level entry doors located across from the Princeton NJ Transit Station/Wawa. All other entry doors are locked on weekends.
Get directions to the Drapkin Studio, located on the 2nd floor of Wallace Dance Building at the Lewis Arts complex.
Accessibility
Drapkin Studio is an accessible venue with an assistive listening system. Visit our Venues and Studios section for accessibility information at our various locations. Students in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at 609-258-5262 or email LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week in advance of the event date.