MPINGA MORNINGS
DIRECTOR: Coleen van Staden
CAST: Debi Hawkins
VENUE: Rosebank Theatre
UNTIL: Saturday
RATING: ***
A performance of great integrity and a script laced with humour, poetry and song make this nostalgic one-hander a rewarding piece of theatre.
Debi Hawkins (pictured) portraying three women of Rhodesian/Zimbabwean origin, shows ingenuity in seamless transitions from one persona to another with the simplest of props: a shawl, a pair of spectacles and a broom. The rest is conveyed through facial expression, body language and change of tone.
Her triple characterisation celebrates the human spirit in times of war and poitical volatility, with their attendant suffering. More particularly, Mpinga Mornings celebrates the resilience of women in hardship.
The threesome portrayed are Jane (the mother), Katy (her daughter) and Grace (their domestic), who live on a tobacco farm. Despite their different characters, which Hawkins captures convincingly, they have two things in common – courage and warmth of heart.
We begin with the birth of Katy, whose infant body is represented by a bundled shawl that morphs a moment later into the traditional carriage-cloth used by black women to carry their babies on their back. Later, this versatile piece of fabric becomes a fashionable scarf worn by an adult Katy living in chilly exile in London and yearning for the beauty of her native land.
Evocations of that beauty abound in the script, adding a poetic dimension to Hawkins’s monologue. Every so often the performer bursts into song to reveal another facet of her talent: she has a sweet, agile voice that falls easily on the ear. However, some of the songs border on self-indulgence as they are too long, breaking the rhythm of her delivery. Some judicious editing would not go amiss here.
Mpinga Mornings not only tracks the lives of three individuals; it also chronicles the history of a country in its painful evolution from British colony to independent state, ending with a bleak perspective of life in present-day Zimbabwe.
Lives lost in the bush war, anxiety over the disappearance of family members, drought, farm invasions, loss of income… none of the three women is exempt from misery, yet each deals with it bravely in her own way.
Life, after all, goes on, and nothing can mar the glory of an African sunrise or the fragrance of a rose-garden.
Mercifully, sentiment is kept under firm control with no whining or self-pity, and the final comment on life in present Zimbabwe is economically, and comically, summed up by the now-aged Grace as she picks up her broom: a shrug of the shoulders accompanied by a “huh!”