The Convert

A powerful play exploring British colonialism in southern Africa and the use of Christianity for cultural disruption. Set in 1896 Rhodesia, a young girl whose father has passed away is to be traded, by her uncle, to an older man with 10 wives in exchange for a number of goats. She escapes this forced marriage by taking refuge in the home of an African teacher in the Catholic church. In exchange, she is given a new name, forbidden to practice her traditional beliefs, required to wear clothing of the colonizers, and eventually is cut off from her family to prove her Christian faith. As tensions in the surrounding villages grow,The Convert explores the struggle between tribal customs and the ways of the British settlers, between traditional African beliefs and the Christianity brought by the colonizers. Resistance could mean death.