Preparations for the Harare International Festival of Arts (Hifa) are gaining momentum as artists make final touches on their performances.
BY NQOBILE NKIWANE
Last week Standardlife&style visited the crew that will perform a comedy, Lovers In Time written by distinguished Zimbabwean playwright Blessing Hungwe.
The play was developed in conjunction with acclaimed British director Doctor Agnieska Piotrowska who said the play drew inspiration from both African and American traditions.
“Hungwe wrote the play which explores some taboos around the legacy of Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi,” she said.
“We then decided to develop the story together which at one point makes fun of the white people.”
The play portrays the spirits of Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi in different lifetimes and embodiments as a way of showing that when a spirit seeks a medium it does not consider gender but anyone it deems suitable.
One of the actors Michael Kudakwashe who at one point plays the embodiment of Mbuya Nehanda said the act is a way of bringing oral tradition back through a comedic element.
- Karoi residents fume over clamping fees
- Senators demand peaceful polls
- Elysium Magna introduces AFRIFAA
- ‘Hifa absence, sign of an arts industry in distress’
Keep Reading
“We intend to tell the journey of Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi in a comic way so as to attract the youth,” he said.
“We are not in any way denigrating them but we have just added humour to the story.”
Another actress who plays the embodiment of Sekuru Kaguvi, Charmaine Mujeri said the play shows the struggle for freedom and the results that we see today .
“At the beginning, the white people dominate but as it continues there is a shift in the balance of power where the black man is superior and at the end the blacks and whites are united,” she said.
“The funniest part is that after the fight, the results are nothing near what everyone expected.” Their first appearance will be on April 29 with other performances on April 1 and 4.
