Ensemble Theatre makes comeback
Youthful theatrical group – Ensemble Travelling Theatre— on Saturday night returned to the stage with their latest play The Imagination of Mind at Stella Maris Secondary School in Blantyre.
The last time the group staged a piece was in December last year when they premiered their second production Thorns in the Heart.
The performance on Saturday nearly suffered a setback due to power outages.
But the team dug deeper to secure a generator that only managed to generate power for lights.
The generator could not manage to pull off power for equipment and this saw the group managing the play without sound.
This notwithstanding, audience, dominated by students, enjoyed the play.
Written by Chicco Makina and Frank Naligonje, the play tells the story of a couple, who are rocked in differences that end up attracting the animal of insanity in their home.
The husband spends much of his time drinking, neglecting his wife.
This, in turn, sees the woman falling for a house boy.
The step daughter in the house also ends up falling in love with the house boy.
But a birthday party for the man ends up being a podium for revelations after the step daughter is found to be pregnant.
“We have been out of the stage for sometime but we were doing something on the ground and did not want to rush. The Imagination is our new production but, before we launch it, we thought we should take it to schools first,” Makina said.
Makina, who stars in the play— which has a small cast of five, including Naligonje, Silvia Khololo, Silvia Layisani and Sheira Kantambe — said they will launch the play in November.
“We are trying to secure venues for the launch. But, while we are working on that, we will be staging the play in schools and Stella Maris was our first venue. Next up is Providence and then other schools,” Makina said.
The play tackles various issues happening in society, with a special focus on HIV and Aids and victimisation.
“We are still vibrant as a group and our silence has mainly been because we do not want to rush. We want to concentrate on what we are doing and stage quality and mature plays,” Makina said.
The play has a good story line and actors did well on stage.
However, there is room for improvement, especially in some of the scenes which are unnecessarily too long.
Some scenes can also be done away with.
There was good use of costume but, in the absence of sound, there was dryness in some cases during change of scenes.
The group released its first production, Broken Covenant, in 2013.
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