Performing 'Service to Empire', by Maud Sulter

In 2022, National Galleries Scotland presented the first abridged reading of Scottish artist Maud Sulter’s 2002 play, Service to Empire. In this film we speak to director Adura Onashile, about the experience, and the importance of bringing the play in front of its first public audience. Best known as an artist and poet, in the play Sulter reimagines the relationship between the parents of Jerry Rawlings, former President of Ghana, whose father was a white Scot and mother was Ghanaian. Exploring long-lasting colonial legacies across two continents, Sulter considered that Service to Empire provides ‘an incisive observation of the explosive reverberations’ of their affair and its impact on Ghana’s former President (in office 1979-2002). Since the play was written 20 years ago, it has never been performed. This reading is long overdue bringing to light the work of this internationally renowned artist. In a unique live broadcast, National Galleries Scotland presented the first abridged rehearsed reading. Directed and abridged by Adura Onashile and co-curated with Mother Tongue. Watch the rehearsed reading here: https://youtu.be/83luy9rmu38 Watch a Q&A with Adura Onashile, and Tiffany Boyle from Mother Tongue, here: https://youtu.be/Jc3AwuIfSnQ