Looking into the Abyss

Hungwe’s first two plays were awarded best production prizes for 2011 and 2012 by the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe. The first dealt with emigration to South Africa and the xenophobia there while the second looked at child sex trafficking. The new one ‘Into the Abyss’ is a timely look at women’s and family issues.

It will open in May at the Harare International Festival of Arts (HIFA) following three weeks of intense rehearsal overseen by Giles and will then tour to places such as Chitungwiza, Kariba and Bulawayo.

Giles’ experience of Zimbabwe goes back many years. He told The Zimbabwean that he loved working with theatre people there and was inspired by their talent, dedication and sacrifice amid huge difficulties. Asked whether, in a country where the authorities have regarded the arts with suspicion for the past two decades, he was worried about the political situation in the tense pre-election period, he said the play was a co-production with the British Council and he was confident it would not run into trouble.

A blunter comment came from Dame Janet Suzman, one of the theatrical luminaries at the event and a patron of Developing Artists who said: ‘The theatre is basically a trouble-making profession and that’s what Giles is doing’. Suzman, a South African, recalled her experience in Zimbabwe in the 1980s making the film ‘Dry White Season’ with Donald Sutherland. She championed the role of performing arts as ‘a forum for truth to be discussed’.

Also at the event was Nicholas Kent, the former artistic director of the Tricycle Theatre in London who will visit Zimbabwe early next year to work with artists developed by Ramsay’s project with the aim of creating a theatre piece to be staged in Harare next May before being toured internationally, highlighting the richness of the Zimbabwe cultural scene.

The event was introduced by the Zimbabwean actress Chipo Chung, daughter of Fay Chung who held various ministerial posts in Zimbabwe between 1980 and 1995. Chipo, now well-known in the UK, spoke of the importance of the arts in provoking, questioning and calling society to account.