Requeim For An Electric Chair

Toto Kisaku’s one-man play, Requiem for an Electric Chair, tells the harrowing true story of his persecution, imprisonment, and near execution in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where his musical comedies exposing child exploitation and government complicity put him on death row.

I wanted to show people what happens to people who are waiting to be executed. Two minutes before you are executed, what are you seeing? What are you thinking about the world?

Opening with his interview with a U.S. immigration officer, the play takes audiences from his arrest and incarceration – using mannequins to represent cellmates whose faces he could not make out in the dark – to his escape in 2015 and eventual asylum in the United States in 2018. Written and performed by Kisaku, the piece explores the psychological and emotional toll of waiting for execution, reflecting Kisaku’s desire to show “what’s going on inside the human being in that moment” and to make every second of life count. Requiem For An Electric Chair invites audiences to witness a story of courage, survival, and the power of art to defy oppression.

Toto Kisaku is an award-winning Congolese playwright, actor, director, and producer.
Written and performed by Toto Kisaku. Developed by Toto Kisaku, Hanifa Nayo Washington and Will MacAdams with translations from Robert F. Barsky.