The Ancestors

The Ancestors was produced by the National Youth Theatre as part of the Freedom and Revolution project which explores the history of black women at the English Heritage site Portchester Castle in Hampshire. The project illuminates the lives of predominantly black and mixed-race prisoners who arrived from the Caribbean on a fleet of ships in the late 1700s. Almost all of the prisoners were held at Portchester Castle along with their families.

Portchester had a prisoner's theatre and one of the plays believed to have been performed was the historical drama The Revolutionary Philanthropist which explored how African slaves had fought for freedom in Haiti; the lives in the play seemed to mirror the lives of the black and mixed-race prisoners at Portchester. The Ancestors reimagines this play but changes the focus from a male, colonial perspective to a black, female one. The play includes a clique of Caribbean maroon warrior women, a Haitian general, and a couple who were once enslaved now seeking to reclaim their land – the Ancestors. They are presented in our world in the hope that we can stop history repeating itself.

The play has a large cast which makes it ideal for performance in schools. The Ancestors was created to be site specific and although this is an important part of the play it could be produced effectively in a different location. I enjoyed the promenade nature of the play often involving the Descendants (the audience) making decisions about the action. From a teaching perspective there are duologues and monologues that would make good choices for students, and group work. I felt particularly keen to work with students on the maroon warriors, both with the text and devising around it.

I really enjoyed the option for alternative endings to the play; in a Zoom webinar (available on the NYT website) Lakesha Arie-Angelo discusses how she wanted the audience to remain connected to the play and consider how they could, inside and outside of the theatre, engage with history and effect change. The Ancestors is a play that could be used in many subjects; drama, music, English, history, PSHE, and geography.