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A Synopsis The musical traces the inspiring life of Bakhita, the Sudanese Canossian Daughter of Charity, who was recently canonized by Pope John Paul II in Rome, on 1st October 2000. Bakhita opens with a prologue that invites the audience to consider what it takes to be a saint! Then follows the festive gathering of the tribe, the pain of Bakhita's sister being kidnapped and of her own kidnapping when she is barely seven years old, just outside the little Sudanese village in which she was born. It follows her journey to the slave market across miles of desert and through the five times she is sold and resold. Her experiences with the different Masters and their families, some happy, most painful, are also portrayed. Her journey takes her finally away from the African continent to Italy, which marks a most significant turning point in her young life: it is here she finds the Crucified God in Jesus Christ. Her passion to know more about God and her deep personal experiences of His love lead her ultimately to desire baptism. Her courageous fight to embrace the faith in the face of fierce opposition and, soon after, her generous response to the call to give her life more fully to God as a Religious Sister bring the musical its breath-taking climax. This is a story of slavery and human degradation, an illustration of what it means to "live in conditions unworthy of the children of God". But much more than that, it is a story of God's love for a broken world and how He can still be found today, even in the depth of human misery.
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