Les Récréâtrales, festival, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, October 29–November 5, 2022.
For the twelfth edition and twentieth year in operation of Les Récréâtrales, a remarkably resilient theatre festival that takes place in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, the event’s organizers used as their theme faire visage. The phrase is taken from a work by the Senegalese novelist Mohamed Mbougar Sarr and resonated with the organizers and artists’ affirmed choice to face up, or faire face, to the multiple difficulties that one inevitably encounters in carrying out an arts event in such an economically marginalized country as Burkino Faso. In the past decade, this Sahelian West African nation has experienced profound political instability, as well as widespread insecurity resulting from the threat of violent separatist jihadist forces arriving from its northern region. The security threat has impacted nearly every aspect of life here. According to the Refugee Agency of the United Nations,...