Uplifting vision of African faith and foreboding
MY HEART always sinks a little at the prospect of a play about religion. Are we to be subjected to the customary sneers, and the facile opposition of God and science? Not here.
Katori Hall’s follow-up to her hit play The Mountaintop, about Martin Luther King, is a warm and benign if sometimes slightly hokey account of three girls in Rwanda in 1981 who had visions of the Virgin Mary.
At first there was panic in the remote farming community amid fears the girls would be ostracised as witches.
But when their Catholic parish priest realised something significant was afoot, an ambassador was sent by the Pope to investigate. Soon after, the visions escalated and, in the end, seemed to prophesy the horrifying massacres of the Rwandan genocide that followed in 1990.
Hall doesn’t try to assess the veracity of these visions. Instead, she paints a fond portrait of the schoolgirls and their community, which is already ominously marked by tribal conflict between Hutus and Tutsis.
The three friends make up a feisty trinity with Gabrielle Brooks as the bullied Tutsi girl who takes Yasmin Mwanza into her confidence, and Pepter Lunkuse as the girl who is initially their scourge.
They are well martialled by Michelle Asante as the hardboiled nun inclined to thrash them back to reality.
There is a nice turn from Leo Wringer as the entrepreneurial Bishop who wants to monetise the visions and sneakily keeps a wife at home (‘Only in Rwanda,’ he chuckles).
Michael Mears is brilliant, too, Our Lady Of Kibeho (Royal & Derngate) Verdict: Uplifting as the Pope’s gaunt inquisitor with a dry sense of humour (God may holiday in Rwanda, he allows, ‘but He lives in Rome’).
There is a lightness of touch about all these characters, but I would have welcomed a greater exploration of their backgrounds — especially Ery Nzaramba as the parish priest who’s been having an eight-year crisis of faith since the murder of his mother.
There are anomalies and anachronisms including a citation of alligators (America, not Africa!), the Pope’s haughty envoy claiming he’s come to ‘suss out’ the girls and one of the trio referencing the others as ‘you guys’.
HALL also gets slightly over- excited by the sensational parts of the visions and it all goes a bit Exorcist, with banging doors, a levitating football and the girls launched from dormitory beds on fly-wires. In theatre, it’s always safer to go for the aftermath of such extremities rather than the event itself, otherwise the audience may start asking the wrong questions. Even so, James Dacre’s direction handles these elements skilfully and maintains a steady momentum through the action.
What really makes his production hum, though, is its heart and soul. This is partly down to the lovable characters, but much is owed to uplifting a capella singing composed by Orlando Gough and Michael Henry.
Jonathan Fensom’s set does its bit, too, with a battered schoolroom, beyond which lies a stunning skyscape that alternates between burning sun and twinkling stars to give the show a cosmic dimension.
So for all the minor flaws in the writing, this is a sweet and ultimately uplifting night out.