The Sunday News
Mbongeni Msimanga Sunday Leisure Correspondent
AFTER successfully making a debut at the Harare International Festival of Arts (Hifa), a local play Water Games is set to make a debut at Youth Cultural Arts Festival (Yocaf) in Masvingo later this month.
Water Games is an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play, Enemy of the People and was originally written by award-winning playwright Christopher Mlalazi and is directed by Jens Vilela Neumann, an experienced theatre director from Germany.
In an interview with Sunday Leisure, Yocaf director Leeroy Gono said the play mainly addressed pertinent issues in society and will resonate with this year’s theme “I Will Act Now.”
“The main thrust for Yocaf is to promote creative expression; the play raises social, pertinent issues which need to be expressed and addressed. Water Games resonates with our theme for this year, ‘I Will Act Now’ and I believe a lot of people will enjoy the play,” he said.
The play mainly centres on the perennial water problems that affect a lot of communities around the country.
Gono said focus, however, would be on the contamination of drinking water sources that have seemingly been neglected by council authorities.
“The play is an interrogation of the perennial drinking water challenges plaguing most communities on the continent. The comical tone of the play combined with live music and video projections are bound to leave anyone in stitches,” said Gono.
Water Games is the story of a health inspector who discovers that the drinking water in his town is contaminated by sewage from leaking sewage pipes and he wants the city council to repair the sewer system to avert a disease outbreak.
But the minister does not like this exposure and calls the inspector an enemy of the people, which is the original Henrik Ibsen title of the play.
The original plot in ‘‘An Enemy of the People’’ is of a doctor who discovers that the water being pumped into the town’s public baths is contaminated with ‘‘infusoria’’ and wants the mayor to close the baths so that repairs can be done to the water pipes.
The play features a star-studded cast of Zimbabwean actors Michael Kudakwashe popularly known as Michael K who has also had a fair stint in comedy and screen, musician and television hostess Kudzai Sevenzo, National Arts Merit Award (Nama) winner for best actor in 2014 Tichaona Makore and Cornelius Muponda.
Gono said the play was part of Yocaf’s initiative aimed at promoting culture and develop communities through the use of arts.
He said it also creates the opportunities for the youth to develop their skills and contribute positively to their communities.
“Yocaf is a youth initiative aimed at promoting culture and enhancing the development of communities through objective use of arts and culture by nurturing professionalism in the youth.
“It creates the opportunity for the youth to develop skills and to utilise those skills to contribute to the development of their communities. The young people get to share ideas, network and express themselves through their various arts disciplines,” he said.
