TOUR READY SHOWS

The Gospel of Othello

The Gospel of Oth­ello is cur­rently on a national tour of Zim­babwe 2012. To book the play, please con­tact Lara Week. For tour dates and venues, please see our cal­en­dar.

Our women bear the pain of absence when our sons and daugh­ters leave home for far­away lands, what strange fruit will our land bear the ances­tors of the future?

The love between the ‘Black Oth­ello’ and the beau­ti­ful Ital­ian Des­de­mona tran­scends all bar­ri­ers but this is not enough to avert a tragic train of events. Will their story uplift or destroy the spir­its of his peo­ple? What do Africans make of Shakespeare’s por­trayal of this son of Africa? The Gospel of Oth­ello high­lights the predica­ment of exile in Shakespeare’s story of love, betrayal and “out­sider­ness.” Per­formed in a mix­ture of Shona, Nde­bele, and Shake­spear­ian verse, The Gospel of Oth­ello offers us a fresh way of see­ing Othello.

The cur­rent stag­ing of The Gospel of Oth­ello is the out­come of three British Coun­cil spon­sored projects in Zimbabwe. The ensem­ble that emerged dur­ing these projects has gone on to form their own artists’ col­lec­tive, The Hothaus, which is com­mit­ted to inno­va­tion, train­ing and sus­tain­able liveli­hoods in Zim­babwe. Begin­ning in Feb­ru­ary 2012, we intend to take the Gospel on an extended tour of over 35 per­for­mances and 35 work­shops in schools.

“This is a ground­break­ing ini­tia­tive that works to bring
a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent cul­tural per­spec­tives to bear on Shakespeare’s text,
allow­ing ‘Oth­ello’ to be re-imagined in a way that opens up
key ques­tions about race, iden­tity and belong­ing.“
Dr. James Moran, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor in Drama
Uni­ver­sity of Nottingham

RECENT PAST PERFORMANCES

2011

National Gallery of Zim­babwe, Bul­awayo Zimbabwe

Int­wasa Arts Fes­ti­val koB­u­l­awayo, Bul­awayo Zimbabwe

Solusi Uni­ver­sity, Bul­awayo Zimbabwe

National Insti­tute of Sci­ence & Tech­nol­ogy (NUST), Bul­awayo Zimbabwe

Harare Inter­na­tional Fes­ti­val of the Arts (HIFA), Harare Zimbabwe

2010

Int­wasa Arts Fes­ti­val koB­u­l­awayo, Bul­awayo Zimbabwe

National Gallery of Zim­babwe, Bul­awayo Zimbabwe

Patrice Naiambana Con­cept & Facil­li­ta­tion
Harold George Move­ment 
Eunice Tava Asso­ciate Direc­tor
Juwon Ogungbe Orig­i­nal songs
Nyasha Chi­rau Musi­cal Direc­tor
Japhet Mlauzi & Christo­pher Tam­bu­rayi Music
Fisani Nkomo Pro­duc­tion Man­ager
Kudzani Dube Pro­duc­tion Coor­di­na­tor
Lara Week Inter­na­tional production 

Tafadzwa Bob Mutumbi Oth­ello
Izzy Tredin­nick Des­de­mona
Mhondiwa Mhepo Iago
Zanele Maseko Emilia
Shel­ton Mpofu Cas­sio
Brenda Jer­anje Bianca
Pamela Gonye Mod­iba
Rejoice Simango Kiara
Josphat Ndlovu Bra­ban­tio & Griot
Priv­i­lege Muten­dera Understudy

DURATION 70–80 min­utes
STYLE The­atre, dance
SCALE Mid, easy to transport