The Robben Island Shakespeare

During the Apartheid years in South Africa, a copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare was smuggled around the prison on Robben Island. The book's significance resides in the fact that the book's owner, Sonny Venkatratham, passed it to a number of his fellow political prisoners in the single cells, including Nelson Mandela, asking them to mark their favourite passages with a signature and date. Informally known as "the Robben Island Bible", numerous prisoners selected the speeches that meant the most to them and their experience as political prisoners.
In 2008 and 2010, playwright and scholar Matthew Hahn conducted interviews with eight former political prisoners in South Africa. Offering a vivid and startling account of the experience of these political prisoners during Apartheid, this extraordinary verbatim play weaves Shakespeare's words together with first-hand accounts from these men. They offer their reflections on their time as Liberation activists and, twenty years later, on the costs, consequences and whether or not it was all worth it.
The play is published alongside a preface by Sonny Venkatrathnam and an introduction by South African actor, director , playwright and cultural activist John Kani.

Matthew Hahn is an international theatre director, playwright and theatre for development facilitator with experience of creating theatre projects in the United Kingdom, the United States, East & Southern Africa. He is the Artistic Director of the Folkestone Performing Arts Company, an artist-led international theatre ensemble creating vibrant, relevant and compelling theatre through the celebration of local stories in Folkestone, UK. Recently, he has directed a staged reading of his new play, The Rivonia Trial, a tribunal play at the Park Theatre as part of the 30th Anniversary of Democracy in South Africa programme with the Anti-Apartheid Legacy: Centre of Memory and Learning. Matthew also works as a theatre for development facilitator. With over 20 years of experience as a theatre for development practitioner in working with communities in struggle, he has co-created interactive and participatory international theatre projects focusing on developing and enabling young people, social cohesion, peace-making and conflict resolution in the Global South & North. He is a drama facilitator and Trustee at Most Mira, a charity which uses applied arts to help to build bridges between divided communities in Bosnia. He has also co-created drama workshops with asylum seekers & refugees from Napier Barracks, Folkestone. His first play, The Robben Island Shakespeare, has been performed in the United Kingdom, United States and South Africa; he regularly facilitates 'Ethical Leadership' Workshops based on his interviews with former South African political prisoners and selections from 'The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.' From 2008 to 2018, he was a Senior Lecturer at St Mary's University, London specializing in theatre for development. From 2006 to 2016, he was a training facilitator with Theatre for a Change, a UK charity which utilizes interactive theatre to train teachers and facilitators on the topics of gender equality and sexual and reproductive health. Matthew has degrees in Political Science & Journalism from Indiana University in the United States and is a graduate of the Goldsmiths College Masters in Theatre Directing programme in the United Kingdom. He trained with the SITI Company in New York and with Anne Bogart in Dublin, Ireland. He has also trained with the Cardboard Citizens Theatre Company in London in their Forum Theatre / Joker Training Programme. As an artist and social activist, he is drawn to complex political opportunities that allow him to utilize his skills as a theatre director, writer and facilitator to further developmental goals. For more information about his work, please visit www.MatthewHahn.org.uk.