Rubber

By Tom Sleigh
Directed by Dyana Kimball
Hudson Exploited Theatre Company

120 min. / Theatre L / $15

Rubber is a swift-moving psychological thriller set in a post-colonial central-African country. It traces the relationship between the charismatic General Thorson, chief of security, and his white secretary, Maze, who is tormented by the legacy of his dead father, a brutal colonial enforcer. Caught between his loyalty to his country and his friendship with Maze, General Thorson joins a plot to enlist the spirit of Maze's father to fight against "the rebels" -- a plot that threatens to destroy them both. By showing how the world of the dead and the living are completely intertwined in the day-to-day life of contemporary central Africa, Rubber is both an accurate depiction of race and political power, as well as a metaphor for the complicating factors that engender cultural secrecy, shame, and even genocide.