THE Homecoming Queen is a play written by Nigerian-American playwright Ngozi Jane Anyanwu. It was first performed in the US in 2018. Production of the local-staged reading was hosted in The Pavillion at Zimbabwe-German Society (ZGS) in Harare last week Saturday and was presented by Almasi Collaborative Arts.
It featured award-winning actress Min’enhle Mguni as Kelechi, a young Igbo woman who grows up in a compound in Nigeria. She loses her mother while she is quite young and is mostly raised by her father Papa Godwin played by Musawenkosi Saruro. The closest thing that she has to a sibling or a best friend is a young houseboy called Obina played by Tadziyashe Bvumbe.
She is by all means a very normal girl until she has a very traumatic experience after being sexually assaulted by boys that live in the neighbouring compound. Obina's best efforts to assist her are not successful as he is easily overpowered. As a result Kelechi falls pregnant. She later takes matters into her own hands and exacts revenge by burning down the neighbouring complex while those boys that assaulted her are still inside.
She leaves Nigeria at the age of 15 to live in the United States. When she returns at the age of 30 she is a best-selling author but finds herself having to reacquaint herself with the culture to which she once belonged and rediscover lost customs that an American way of life had gradually diluted.
The play also marked the directorial debut of actress and literary activist Charmaine Mujeri. “It’s a Nigerian story but there is so much of it that anyone can identify with. There is unresolved trauma, people are walking around with a lot of baggage that they don’t even realise they have. There are a lot of broken souls walking around and we are wearing masks that will eventually crack. Unfortunately, in some instances other people end up taking their lives and that’s often the most tragic part,” Mujeri said.
The play was stage-directed by Catherine Mutimusakwa and featured Cynthia Njagu, Rumbidzai Musiwa, Munashe Goromonzi and Chelsy Maumbe who plays the role of Beatrice, Kelechi's 'abandoned' daughter. The cast enchanted the audience with their superb acting abilities and mastery of tone and characterisation of the Nigerian accent.
Almasi is a Zimbabwean American dramatic arts collaborative organisation whose executive artistic director is Danai Gurira. Its name is derived from Al-ma-see, an African word of Swahili origin that means ‘brilliant’, ‘diamond’.
According to officials, the vision of the organisation is to professionalise the dramatic arts industry in Zimbabwe through education, facilitation and collaboration with professional American dramatic artists and artistic institutions. They also conduct their mission through their work with Almasi Arts Alliance, which is based in the United States.
Zaza Muchemwa, the associate artistic director said that this year’s staged readings are a deliberate effort to ‘foster conversations between Africa and its diaspora’.
Programmes coordinator Gideon Jeph Wabvuta told Standard Style that they had a television writing workshop run by Matthew Negrete, a writer on the American post-apocalyptic horror drama television series The Walking Dead, as well as 2 more stage readings that will be coming out throughout the year. “We have a directive workshop where we will be bringing someone from the United States to come and train directors. At the back end of the year, Almasi will be hosting the Almasi African Playwrights Conference where we will be bringing in 5 playwrights from Africa. We will run a 2-week workshop where they will get an opportunity to develop their plays in collaboration with a facilitator from the US,” he added.