Esther’s Revenge is an experiential play inspired by true life events of Esther who
was reported to have murdered her white lover in 1953. The sentence is death by
Hanging. This very participatory play as devised, explores themes around Race,
Colonization, Sexual abuse, violence against women, political and social injustice.
Esther takes us on a journey through time into the events leading up to the death of
Mark. The Jury is given the responsibility to vote in favour or against a stay of
execution.


Esther Ada Johnson murdered Hall in 1953 in a savage attack with a pair of scissors.
Hall was a Colonial Railway worker and apparently she had killed him because he
had returned from a home leave in England to tell her that he had married an English
bride and had used the £400 Johnson had lent him to buy a taxi for his new bride so
that she could start a business. Johnson was tried and convicted in 1956 and
sentenced to death. She remained on Death ow in Broad Street Prison (now
Freedom Park) Lagos. Her sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.
In 1961, on the first anniversary of Nigeria's independence, Governor-General Nnamdi
Azikiwe pardoned Esther Johnson in the name of the Queen.