Masvingo play set for Durban

Entertainment
A ZIMBABWEAN play, The Gods You’ve Built has been invited to participate at the annual Isigcawu Theatre Festival in Durban, South Africa.

A ZIMBABWEAN play, The Gods You’ve Built has been invited to participate at the annual Isigcawu Theatre Festival in Durban, South Africa.

OWN CORRESPONDENT

The play, written by talented playwright, Tawanda Kanengoni, premiered at the Charles Austin Theatre in Masvingo.

The play is also scheduled to be performed in Johannesburg and Pretoria before it comes for a run in Harare at Reps Theatre.

It is also due to be performed in India early December before it finishes its 2013 run at the Ibumba Festival in Bulawayo, in December.

Speaking on the tour, the director of the play also the resident artistic director of the Charles Austin Theatre, Leeroy Gono said: “I am pleased that the seeds we planted are now starting to germinate.

“I have a great script and a talented cast, now we need to show it to the world what we can do as Zimbabweans.

“It is one of Masvingo Drama Circle’s aims of working on local scripts that will reflect on the lives of Zimbabweans and that the local audiences can relate to.

“The aim to create a structure by which young Zimbabwean actors can access the necessary training and resources to produce new work reflecting the Zimbabwean experience, representing Zimbabwean culture locally and internationally,” he added.

The cast includes Khetani Michael Banda who was a star in the last comedy Run for Your Wife. In this production Banda plays the role of Pamhidzai, a policeman.

He has been with the theatre since 2009 and has been performing and writing plays.

Binda has won best achievement award for his play, The Reunion at the One Act Play Festival in Kadoma.

He is ably supported by Precious Mudzingwa who plays the part of Rudo, a nun. Precious has a massive acting experience ranging from television to stage.

Her stage work includes Eclipsed written by Danai Gurira and directed by Zane Lucas (Harare International Festival of Arts 2012); Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo, directed by Zane Lucas (Hifa 2011); Revolution Avenue by Musekiwa Samuriwo, directed by Gono (Hifa 2010); Zuva Crumbling by Wiina Msimati, directed by Zane Lucas and Gono and Invisible Prison written and directed by Raisedon Baya, among other plays.

In front of the camera, Mudzingwa has starred in King’s Kraal a Bulawayo-produced television series, Ghetto Fellaz produced by Patsime Trust, among other shows.

To complete the cast, playing the part of Brian, a professor, is Gono.

He spent his early acting days back in 2005 at the Drama Circle, working on such plays as Funny Money, Black Comedy, Babysitting Calvin, among others.

The Gods You’ve Built is set over the period of one night in an abandoned toilet. Three people’s lives, (Brian, Rudo and Pamhidzai), converge in a tragic and tumultuous turn of events that leaves two of them dead and one changed forever.

The play opens with Brian, a university professor, pacing in an abandoned toilet mumbling a cryptic list of names.

He is then joined by Rudo, a Catholic nun, who brings him a handgun as per his request.

Before Brian can execute his plan Pamhidzai, dressed in police garb enters the toilet seemingly drunk and looking for a place to relieve himself.

He instantly takes issue with the fact that Rudo is in the men’s room but only to the extent of thinking that she is there as Brian’s prostitute.

After helping himself Pamhidzai notices that Brian has very elaborate tattoos of the Hindu symbol aum.

As he tries to coax Brian into showing all his tattoos he discovers that Brian has a gun.

The characters in the play engage in a deep philosophical conversation about the purpose of life and the idea of God and whether there is such a thing as God at all.

The Gods You’ve Built explores all these aspects of the human existence and the raw emotions that often lead us to self destructive decisions.

The Isigcawu Theatre Festival takes place from November 31 to December 3 2013.