Writer, Curator LibertyEqualityFraternity

LibertyEqualityFraternity is a collaborative project comprised of three short plays by one Anglophone and two francophone writers – Alain Foix (Guadeloupe/France), Ahmed Ghazali (Morocco/Spain) and Gabriel Gbadamosi (UK) – exploring our differing cultural approaches to character and action, the free play of language and ideas, and a single theme.

The trilogy is composed of

• Trinity on a Rock by Alain Foix
• Allons Les Enfants! by Ahmed Ghazali
• Don’t Wake Me by Gabriel Gbadamosi

The plays were curated by Gabriel, acting as dramaturg and translator (with David Gbadamosi translating Don’t Wake Me into French), and explored through a floor-based dramaturgical process with the writers and actors from 5-10 November 2007. LibertyEqualityFraternity was staged in bi-lingual versions at the George Wood Theatre, Goldsmiths on 9 November with a public performance at the Soho Theatre, London on 10 November 2007.

The performances took place in the context of the Franco-British Acts of Translation conference which I hosted at the Pinter Centre, Goldsmiths College (9-11 November, 2007). Acts of Translation is a series of conferences and meetings between culturally diverse playwrights in Paris and London exploring common ground and structural differences in rethinking the role of the playwright in our changing societies.

Following the Paris meeting at Theatre du Lierre (28-30 September, 2006), and a subsequent meeting between the three writers of LibertyEqualityFraternity as part of The Fence network of European playwrights in Istanbul (1-5 April, 2007), we decided to engage in an exchange concerning dissent and difference in relation to an explicitly ideological slogan bound up with the notion of belonging.

The performances of LibertyEqualityFraternity became the basis for on-going critical exchanges between participating French and British playwrights, facilitators and researchers in Acts of Translation.

Extract from LibertyEqualityFraternity: Don’t Wake Me, by Gabriel Gbadamosi (pdf).

Download a poster of the event (pdf).