After a successful tour of South Africa, the highly acclaimed play on national healing and reconciliation, Rituals, heads for Scotland.
Rooftop Promotions is taking the play to Edinburgh Festival Fringe where it will be staged from August 4 to 15 at the New Town Theatre.
Rooftop marketing manager Tafadzwa Muzondo said the SA tour was a great experience that prepared the cast for any international platform.
“We had a sterling performance at Hillbrow Theatre having performed at the South African Council of Churches for religious leaders, Wits University for students and activists, Central Methodist Church for displaced Zimbabweans based there and also at Precinct Park, Yeoville Park and Diepsloot Shopping Complex for a general audience, among others,” said Muzondo.
Rituals went on a national tour last year before being staged in Zambia where it received outstanding recognition.
Muzondo said the cast is highly prepared for Edinburgh.
“We are looking forward to an exciting run in Edinburgh after the South African expedition which was intriguing and inspiring. We managed to engage with Zimbabweans living abroad who related a lot of stories on how they were forced to flee the country by politically-motivated post-independence disturbances.
“These were Zimbabweans who fled political violence as early as the early 80s and as recent as 2010, who are now either temporarily or permanently staying in South Africa.”
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He said discussions held with audiences at all shows revealed that healing can never be treated like a game in which a whistle is blown to signal the start or end, but rather a personal process that involves psychological approaches.
“On this note, some even went further to say that healing is irrelevant saying it is like soccer players exchanging jerseys with their opponents at half-time. They said GPA is a ‘half-time’ in the struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe.
“To them healing can only come about after genuine changes in such deep-rooted systems as party-sponsored violence, partisan application of the law, criminalisation and victimisation of members of some political parties.
“Although people disagreed on which point to start the healing process, it was interesting for them engage in objective discussions which stressed that the truth has to be told if we are to get over the effects of our violent politics and live in peace.”
Written by Stephen Chifunyise, directed and produced by Daves Guzha, Rituals features Mandla Moyo, Zenzo Nyathi, Chipo Bizure, Joyce Mpofu, Silvanos Mudzvova and Rutendo Chigudu with music from Joshua Mwase and Gibson Sarari.
The play is an enjoyable production which updates people with a theatrical representation of the situation in Zimbabwe.
