THE GREAT PRIVATION

The Great Privation: how to flip ten cents into a dollar by Nia Akilah Robinson

“So why should I sacrifice my husband’s body, for medicine he/me/or my child wouldn’t receive?”

14 May — 01 June, Theatre503

The Great Privation is about Grave Robbing: Grave Robbing during the early 1800’s. Grave Robbing during the Cholera outbreak. Grave Robbing in Pennsylvania. Robbing of Black bodies for medical research. Black bodies that were commodified even after death. Black bodies that never got their rest.

In early 1800’s Pennsylvania, a mother and daughter keep vigil at a grave. Today, at a Summer Camp on the same grounds, a new, yet not entirely different mother and daughter navigate a new, yet not entirely different landscape. Alongside them, two distinct male figures move in and out of both sets of lives, threatening to unearth dark truths – or to help create them. As timelines collide and secrets and lives become buried and revealed, a reckoning comes calling to them all: the roots to our ancestors are not as long as we may think.

2023 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award Finalist The Great Privation: How to flip ten cents into a dollar is a stunning, profound play exploring the historical disruption of black bodies at rest, and the deep impact still felt today. Nia Akilah Robinson’s beautiful and haunting debut play, directed by Theatre503 Carne Associate Director Kalungi Ssebandeke, captures humour and joy amongst the darkest moments, and asks us all to reflect deeply on who we once might have been.

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