Sasha Hails’ debut stage play Possession to make world premiere at Arcola Theatre

Arcola Theatre have announced the world première of Sasha Hails’ debut stage play Possession.

Oscar Pearce will direct the production which completes the Arcola summer season in Studio 1 from 15 June – 15 July 2023.

The company features Sarah Amankwah as Kasambayi, Diany Bandza as Hope, Dorothea Myer-Bennett as Alice Young/Alice Seeley Harris, and Milo Twomey as John Dent/John Harris.

The new play interweaves the stories of four mothers across continents and time, through colonial and contemporary Democratic Republic of Congo, and Victorian and present-day London.

Four mother’s lives interweave across continents and time…

Kasambayi, recently arrived in the UK from the Democratic Republic of Congo, starts her contractions on the number 38 bus at Clapton Ponds, and gives the final push at Victoria. She names her daughter Hope — hope for their new life, hope for their future.

Once Hope is fully grown, her path crosses with Alice, a foreign correspondent with a particular interest in cobalt – the latest blood mineral being mined in the DRC. But will their budding friendship threaten the life that Kasambayi has so carefully built for them in London?

Meanwhile Alice Seeley-Harris, a Victorian Missionary’s wife in King Leopold’s Congo has a horrible sense that history is repeating itself.

Possession is a tale about desire. About owning and being owned. About colonising and being colonised. And ultimately about the power of the spirit to escape oppression.

The creative team is completed by set designer Sarah Beaton, lighting designer Joseph Ed Thomas, sound designer Esther Kehinde Ajayi, video designer Leo Flint, costume supervisor Alexandra Kharibian and movement director Tian Brown-Simpson.

For more information and tickets, visit arcolatheatre.com