TOO LATE MY FRIEND

September 21, 2013: Somali Al-Shabab terrorists attack the Westgate Mall in Nairobi. At the time of the attack, a children’s cooking competition was taking place in the mall. The terrorists kill dozens of people: children, women, men, blacks, whites, Kenyans, foreigners. Rumors suggest that the terrorists spared Muslims by asking them a question: “What was the name of the Prophet Muhammad’s mother?”

About two years earlier, in December 2011, Titta Halinen and Jonna Wikström were sitting in the same mall’s café, sipping on caffe lattes. The air was made cool and almost intangible by the evaporation. The aromas from the adjacent bakery wafted to their noses. If one did not close their eyes, it was almost possible to forget the ramshackle huts of the Kibera slum, the burning smell of human waste, the greedy flies, the hunger, and the apathy of adults disheartened by their lack of prospects. Malnourished children, most of whom will not survive to adulthood.

What one cannot forget is that the development cooperation project that Halinen and Wikström came to Nairobi (Kibera) to work on has crashed and burned. Halinen and Wikström try to make sense of what is happening behind their latte glasses. With the project no longer in existence, Halinen and Wikström decide to fly to Mombasa. There, by the Indian Ocean, they begin to collect material for a performance that would eventually be named “Too Late My Friend.”

Too Late My Friend – An African Journal is a performance, but not a success story; rather, it is a narrative of the failure of a development cooperation project. It is also a story of the world’s failure, the chasm created by the utterly unjust distribution of wealth among people. It attempts, through personal experiences, to address the question of why we so radically fail in our efforts to reach out to one another. It is a story of otherness, horror, greed, and the reality that a sincere desire to help is not always enough. It is a performance that fundamentally questions one’s own sincerity.

Halinen and Wikström finish their lattes, get up, and leave the Westgate Mall. Al-Shabaab is still planning its terrorist attack, which will take place on September 21, 2013. Later, Halinen and Wikström google and learn that Muhammad’s mother’s name was Amina.

Co-operation with Q-teatteri

Not for the kids under 16 years

place
Q-Theatre
Tunturikatu 16, 00100 Helsinki