Opening night

I was saying the other day to someone that I miss going to the theatre and then what should happen but I get invited to go to a production called Tariro!

It was all about a girl from Zimbabwe who gets caught in the middle of her father and brother who have opposing opinions on the political trouble there – not a light hearted sort of a thing and I get pretty lost after about an hour but actually I really enjoyed it.

They told the story by using a printing press owned by a White Man but built on a Black Man’s land as the setting. The sons of the two men grow up together and are friends, everyone gets on at the factory/press and works happily side by side until one day when the two sons go shopping. The Black Boy is chucked out of a white’s only shop and the White Boy does not leave with him but carries on shopping. Then, at the factory, one of the workers goes missing and rumours start as to where he is ending up at him being in prison for murder. His colleagues work together to try to cover it up but when Black Man sends his daughter in to ask questions on his behalf they fall apart in their support. Meanwhile, her brother, Black Boy, goes to White Man’s farm to see White Boy but everyone is suspicious of him and then the farm is attacked and the White Man’s family are killed. This is when I got a bit lost but then next thing is there is a party at the factory…the daughter speaks to brother to get him to come because their father, Black Man, is the guest of honour. He refuses (I think) because he thinks that his father sent his men to the farm to pay them back for what happened in the shop but the Black Boy doesn’t care about what happened then and is angry about the deaths of his friends family so doesn’t want to go. This causes big matata for which the daughter is stuck in the middle and eventually is beaten up by the factory manager and the men who do not support Black Man. The party happens anyway but things are strained, the daughter drags herself there and finds the brother has come, then there is a big fight and she dies. The end.

It was acted by people from Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Africa and the UK with a mixture of speaking and singing while dancing and flinging themselves about – which of course the black actors looked marvellous doing but the white actors just looked a bit silly! It was interesting though because, in light of what the story was about, it helped to show up the differences really well.

I’m still none the wiser about the Zimbabwe situation though or if there will ever be a solution. The play seemed to suggest it was all a very nasty game of tit-for-that. All I know is that recently we’ve had a lot of Zimbabwean nurses trying to register with the NMC to come and work in Malawi. They are all very experienced, lovely people who just want to work but can’t. If I thought healthcare was bad here, I can only imagine what is happening there. Apparently it now costs 32 billion dollars to buy a stamp but even if you can afford that it’s a waster of time because there is no post!