God Remembers Setsi by Nadine Allache’26, presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Theater at Princeton University at Drapkin Studio at the Lewis Arts complex on the Princeton University campus

Date/Times: March 27 at 8p.m. March 28 at 11:30a.m.

What is the opposite of a lie? Is it the truth? Or is it remembering why you told the lie in the first place? Princeton senior Nadine Allache’s God Remembers Setsi refuses the authority of the written record and instead trusts repetition, breath, and critical fabulation as sites of historical survival. The play is inspired by the erased oral histories of Amazigh women, the indigenous people of North Africa. The work emerges from the recognition that what is held only in memory is always at risk of disappearance, and yet what is unrecorded is not unwitnessed. In the play, Setsi, a blinded freedom fighter, prepares for a ceremony honoring her courage. Her granddaughter unexpectedly appears with a miracle that could restore her sight. But there’s one condition: Setsi must admit the truth about the tragic day that everything went dark. Allache, who is also directing, received an Alex Adam ’07 Award grant from the Lewis Center last summer to support both the research and writing of the play, recording, transcribing, and adapting her grandmother’s oral histories in Taqbaylit while spending ten weeks in New York City learning from and engaging with the artistic cultures of Amazigh and immigrant communities, whose histories and lived experiences have too often existed only in memory. 

Admission: Free and open to the public, however tickets are required, available online at tickets.princeton.edu.

Accessibility: The Drapkin Studio is an accessible venue. Guests in need of access accommodations are asked to contact the Lewis Center at LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week prior to the event date.