If Samuel Beckett met Pol Pot

The view behind the wire inside Tuol Sleng museum, formerly s-21 detention camp (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Breaking a horrific silence onstage (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Friday, 01 April 2011
Written by Simon Roughneen
Asia Sentinel

In some of Cambodia’s thousands of killing fields, the bones of the dead can sometimes be seen, rising to the surface after storms or rain, grisly emblems of an unburied past. Perhaps 16,000 died at the s-21 Detention Camp in Phnom Penh, or at Choeung Ek outside the city. All told, an estimated 2 million people died during Pol Pot's terror reign.

Some of that horror is being retold on the stage. On Wednesday evening, the town of Tik Panhaow as the scene of a searing, stark drama in the dimly-lit marketplace in front of the village pagoda, a bumpy hour's motorcycle ride outside Phnom Penh.

Tears run down Nhem Roeun's face as she watches and listens to the performers on a makeshift stage.
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