Playwright Latif Abubakar is set to bring President John Dramani Mahama’s United Nations Reckoning to stage for his 21st Production.
Produced by Globe Productions, in partnership with the National Theatre, UNESCO, and the Ministries of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, and Foreign Affairs, the production, titled “The Darkest Chapter” promises to be a world-class musical dance theatrical experience.
It is inspired by President Mahama’s testimony before the United Nations GeneralAssembly (UNGA), earlier this year, which saw the UNGA do something it had never done since its existence; voting 123 to 3 resolution to declare the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialised chattel enslavement the gravest crime against humanity in recorded history.
The resolution, spearheaded by the Republic of Ghana, and borne forward on the shoulders of the African Union, CARICOM, and people of conscience across the world, provided a moment where a nation’s leadership turned centuries of silence into a verdict.
It also stands as the spark behind one of the most ambitious theatrical undertakings created by the veteran playwrigh to be ever staged in Ghana.
A Thousand Lives, One Witness
At the heart of the production is “The Witness”, an immortal narrator who has lived a thousand lives across four hundred years; a child of the Gold Coast, a man in chains on the Middle Passage, a field hand on a Caribbean plantation, a marcher beside history’s freedom fighters, and, tonight, a presence moving unseen through the halls of the United Nations.
He carries four centuries of stolen names, hard-won freedom, and an unfinished promise into the UNGA chamber, and by the time the vote is called, The Darkest Chapter turns the question back on the audience, asking; what will you do now that you know?
Set across three simultaneous worlds; The shores and dungeons of Cape Coastand Elmina, a modern UN General Assembly hall, and a timeless spirit realm reachable only through drumming and movement, the production fuses West African, Contemporary, and Caribbean dance traditions with a live score of African percussion, orchestral strings, and a full gospel-highlife choir.
“It is by every measure, a sensory masterpiece; immersive, cinematic, and unapologetically global in its ambition, and designed to premiere with equal power in Accra, Kingston, Bridgetown, Port of Spain, New York, or London,” Mr. Abubakar said.
The award winning Playwright is urging the audience to walk through the performance, so that when the resolution is finally spoken aloud on that stage, it doesn’t land as a headline, but as an answered prayer.
“We are not asking audiences to relive four hundred years of pain. We are asking them to walk through it,” He said.
“This is not a re-enactment. It is an inheritance,” he added.
The 21st Chapter of a Storied Career
Marking his 21st production, The Darkest Chapter celebrates Latif Abubakar’s career as a body of work that has quietly built Ghana’s most consistent bridge between theatre and social change.
Over the years, the Award winning Playwright has carved out a distinctive niche, using the stage not merely to entertain, but to confront the health, social, and current issues shaping everyday life, and championing what practitioners call Theatre for Development, where drama becomes a tool for public education, healing, and national conversation.
From that same tradition, now rises his most historic and most personal work yet, a production inspired by his own country’s president standing before the world and demanding justice for the darkest chapter in human history.
A national moment, a global stage
Aside entertainment, education, and a cause for social change, the Darkest Chapter headlines this year’s Ghana Theatre Festival, and will be staged at the intersection of history, diplomacy, and national pride.
It will also provide a rare opportunity for individuals, families, and friends to witness together, a story that is at once deeply Ghanaian and universally human.
Scheduled for October 2026 at the National Theatre, and running for three unmissable nights and matinees, the production will show on Friday, October 2, at 7:00pm, and on Saturday, October 3rd and Sunday, October 4, at 4:00pm & 8:00pm each day.
Tickets are on sale at GHC200 and can be purchased by dialling *447*1092#, or online at www.globeproductions.biz.
This October, the National Theatre will not simply host a play. It will host a reckoning, and an invitation to every Ghanaian, and every friend of Ghana, to answer the question The Darkest Chapter leaves ringing in the dark; The sun must not set on justice.
#TheDarkestChapter #GhanaTheatreFestival #SunMustNotSet