Local play to premiere in South Africa

30 Nov, 2014 - 06:11 0 Views
Local play to premiere in South Africa

The Sunday News

Thobekisiwe Gumede
AFTER their successful tour of Kenya where they presented the play The Gods you’ve built, Xpressive Arts, a theatre group based in Masvingo is already working on a new play set to premiere in Ladysmith, KwaZulu Natal in South Africa.
The group has been invited to the Unyezi Theatre festival which takes place in Ladysmith on 6 to 7 December this year.

Xpressive Arts has been riding high with their productions in the sector after being nominated for outstanding theatrical production and best director at the Nama awards. The group has also attracted interest from local, regional and international audiences and they are promising yet another hit.

The new play The Greyman Experiment which has been described as witty, sexy, and hilarious and a piece of mind blowing comedy was written by the award winning playwright Mandisi Gobodi.

Confirming the invitation, Leeroy Gono who is the director of  Xpressive Arts said they would be touring South Africa for the second time.

“This is not our first time touring the country. The group was in Durban last year where the play, The Gods you’ve built received great hype and attention. So after seeing our works the South Africans asked to partner with us”.

Gono mentioned that the partnership would help them learn new ideas and hence communicate the Zimbabwean culture through play.

“The idea behind this relationship is to network and share ideas and our products as much as possible in the region. We are excited to be premiering our new play there,” he said.

Gobodi is known for penning the 2008 National Arts Merit Awards (Nana) winning play, Loupe. His other works include Allegations, which was also staged in Edinburgh, Scotland; GPA and Kookabura. He is currently at the height of his career and the play Greyman Experiment promises to be his best work yet.

Gono said the two-man play was a witty comedy which talks about the complex relationships found in modern society.

“Greyman and greywoman are a couple living in a cosmopolitan city laden with the demands of urbanisation. The definition of roles and gender perceptions are challenged daily. The Greywoman puts the Greyman under secret observations, observing all his moves so as to report back on how to get a man to do what a woman wants”.

“The Greyman as an unknowing participant goes through the ropes covering areas such as good sex, finances, boredom and life as we know it. The play takes a twist when we discover that the Greyman has an older experiment and he is happy to report that he thinks the Greywoman is up to something,” he said.

Gono added that they were building a cast for the play that would add flavour and do justice to the well-written script.

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