A local play titled Washington Junction will be staged at this year’s Harare International Festival of the Arts (Hifa).
Report by Kundai Marunya
Written by Tafadzwa Muzondo who plays the lead role and directed by Patience Tawengwa of Almasi Collaborative arts, the play is enriched by big names in the industry such as Daniel Maphosa and Evangelista Mwatse.
Evangelista and Maphosa play dual roles, as a street vendor and abused university student and councillor and his son respectively while Muzondo plays Washington.
Washington Junction tells the story of a young man who is denied education after the death of his brother as he fails to pay school fees
He tries his luck at vending, but faces a system that does not offer any assistance to innovating young people, but prosecute them for trying to make a living.
As Washington rots in jail, a politician bails him out who in return asks for his support in the form of doing his dirty work that includes murder and victimising opposition party supporters. The politician’s son, who has moved away from home to work his way to the top tries to warn Washington, but is dismissed as crazy and ungrateful.
An expert “bootlicker”, he finds himself operating a car wash business with aspirations of making a better future for himself and his girlfriend. In an act of money-making ritual, the politician forces himself on Washington who tries to be resistant, but is blackmailed with the jail term over the people he has murdered.
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An awkward situation arises as he discovers his girlfriend was actually a victim of the same man who has sodomised him.
The play largely relates to various sectors of the community as it adopts stereotypical behaviours from vulgar vendors, alcoholic street people to exploitative politicians.
In the end, it is observed that the chain of victimisation dates back from the armed struggle where both freedom fighters and colonialists exploited women.
The victims, however, step up to the corrupt world and become champions of their own destiny as they support one of their own to take power in politics and encourage her to stand firm no matter what the repercussions are.
