The Sunday Mail
Takudzwa Chihambakwe
“The main reason why these ruthless men get away with their crime is simply because most of the victims do not know what the law says about child marriage and rape. So with this production we try and encourage victims to speak out.”
BRAND new theatre production “Lamentations @12”, is set to go for a world tour, which will be preceded by a national tour that starts this September.
The play, which premièred at Theatre in The Park last Tuesday is the writing debut of actress Getrude Munhamo who is also part of the cast alongside award-winning actress, Dalma Chiwereva.
Munhamo tells the story of how rape and child marriage have left the girl child torn apart emotionally and with little hope of having a brighter future in a very unique one-hour presentation that is lit up by energetic folk dances and songs that give the production a rich element of cultural heritage.
“The national tour kicks off in Mashonaland West Province this September in partnership with the drama group, Baptism of Fire. We will start with Chinhoyi then Karoi and finish off in Kariba,” said producer and director of the play, Daves Guzha.
“On September 15 we will be in Uganda, performing at the Bayimba International Festival of the Arts and our first show is slated for the Uganda National Theatre. Thereafter, we go to Nairobi and we return back to Zimbabwe as the closing theatre production for Intwasa Festival.
“We will take a short break and resume our national tour with focus on colleges as we would love to share ideas with stars of tomorrow. For the European circuit, we had set dates for November in partnership with UK’s Chickenshed Theatre, but now we are renegotiating to travel during their spring season, that is around February and March next year targeting more theatres in that zone, which include the Edinburgh Theatre and the National Theatre in Norway amongst many others. In between, we will also be staging in the region and more details will be made available once confirmations have been made,” revealed Guzha.
Munhamo also spoke of how she came up with such an intriguing piece that compresses together different time zones that have one common factor, the abuse of the girl child.
Said Munhamo: “I wanted to be a voice to most children that are 12 years and below. Most parents do not know what happens to their children at this tender age and even if they do get to find out, very few step out and get the perpetrators punished.
“You realise that many of these victims tend to speak out when they are older but they would have lived with this atrocious pain throughout the rest of their childhood, which is not good.
“The main reason why these ruthless men get away with their crime is simply because most of the victims do not know what the law says about child marriage and rape. So with this production we try and encourage victims to speak out.
“Another area I address in the play is the cause of child marriage. At the moment there are efforts being made to curtail this practice in Zimbabwe. But, if we are to succeed in achieving this as a nation, we have to deal with the root of the matter.”
“Lamentations @12”, is a story of the stolen age of innocence. It encapsulates a deliberate trajectory of historical and societal norms, the lack of growth and change in attitude in various times in the human evolution or lack of it.
