(Nompilo Maphumulo. Pic by Val Adamson)Outstanding and beautifully focused performance from Nompilo Maphumulo. (Review by Philisiwe Sithole)
On, April 12, The Playhouse hosted the opening of its 2012 Community Arts Festival which is now in its third year running and is a central component of the Playhouse’s development initiatives and upliftment for aspiring artists. It also provides a platform for artists to gain indispensable proficiency in the performing arts.
I attended the opening which included The Serpent's Tale written by Leonid Andreyev and adapted for the stage by Walter Wykes. It was performed by Nompilo Maphumulo mentored by Peter Court. The Serpent's Tale is a one-hander about a woman sharing her painful life experience of hurt ,betrayal and anger. She persuasively seduces a man and ends up poisoning him to death in revenge for the male oppression she has endured her entire life. It’s a story of crooked love, flirtation and evil.
The set is minimal - a chaise-longue, an old-fashioned gramophone and a mirror on a stand. The mood of the play is very jazzy and sensual combined with sassy femininity. This is an ambiguous play which becomes meaningful when the woman confronts her anguish and disappointments. This creates sympathy for the character. She questions the matter of beauty and love. She also justifies her nature of loving by emphasising that she deserves better because she is beautiful and amazingly appealing to the eye. Killing the man is her way of healing the wounds she has been hiding in her beauty.
Nompilo Maphumulo gives an outstanding and beautifully focused performance. She has a great clear voice which is very well controlled and it grabs the attention. Some moments are incited with flirtatious moves which it held the audience's focus.
There is one more performance today (April 14) at 14h00 in the Playhouse Loft. Admission is free to all CAF performances at The Playhouse but booking is advised through the Playhouse box office. - Philisiwe Sithole
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