Luminato: The Africa Triology

So I know all festival long I have been blabbing about themes I noticed emerging at Luminato this year, especially the Female Spirit. Not be forgotten is the presentation of our global village, more importantly Africa and its connection to the West. One piece that explores this concept is The Africa Triology a triple bill feature by the Volcano Theatre. The triology isn’t your average production with three playwrights and directors from six countries, eleven performers and a production team that spans the world.

Shine Your Eye

The first on the bill is Shine Your Eye, written by Kenyan Binyavanga and directed by  Ross Manson. A deconstruction about our position in the global village and its new technologies and just how they are shaping Africa’s next generation. It follows a young Nigerian woman Tambari (Lucky Onyekachi Ejim) who feels obstructed having a famous hero for a father, while agonzing on finding her own identity.  Through this multidisciplinary piece consisting of animation, movement and the usage of an avatar we are able experience and feel what Tambari does… from confronting the idea of migrating to America to the notion of lesbianism.

Peggy Pickit Sees the Face of God

You just there, like right there smack dab in the middle of a living room of a couple hosting a dinner party. On the menu is an candid, absolutely funny work Peggy Pickit Sees the Face of God, by Germany’s Roland Schimmelpfennig. The comedy examines a husband and wife who spent six years in Africa as part of a medical team and have now returned home to be greeted by old friends at a dinner party.

Written with wit packed with various medias; freeze-frame action, live-video, and repetitive dialogue… as the party gets into the full swing the skeletons come out of the closet.  It plays on the guilt us Westerns feel about our lackadaisical attitude towards the massive pandemic affecting Africa. This one knocked it out of the park for me… it made you really think and reflect on the lack-lustre job and ignorance we have in our global community.

GLO

Last on the bill was the highly emotional and complex GLO, by American playwright Christina Anderson’s. It’s about a young author Lydia (Dorothy A. Atabong), who has left her village for the first time to promote her book at a local diversity conference in NYC. Her story about being raised in the slums of Kenya has given her a taste of the Western world, while back home her brother Benjamin falls prey to the slums she once knew.

Lydia’s senses are on overload as she tries to process her environment and its relationship, as she does the notions and perceptions of modern globalization seep into the audience.

Truly an amazing production on Africa and its love hate relationship with the West.

Ponder this… What is the human consequence of our global relationship?                                   I’m just saying… think ’bout it!!

xoxo                                                                                                                                                                       Pinkie