Up to 30 local actors and actresses gave their impressive performances in the theatre play titled Ring of the African Queen at the Maxuilili Centre in the Babylon informal settlement in Katutura here.
The play is about an African queen who receives a precious ring from her grandfather that will protect her from all the evils of the world and she promises the grandfather that she will honour the ring. However one day, the queen loses the ring to a thief who steals while she is bathing at the riverbed. After the sad scenario one of the ministers in the community goes to a wise woman who presents magic sticks to all the villagers and court people with the expectation that the thief’s stick will grow by a palm wider than the other sticks over a night.
The next morning the thief is found and apologises to the African queen and they all live happily after with a big celebration. The play features Dominic Lunenege and Vincent Mwemba who are College of the Arts (COTA) lecturers, Asser Kauazunda from the National Theatre of Namibia (NTN) and children and elders from the Babylon informal settlement.
The play was invented by Karin Megies as a theatre piece after the fairy tale of Jay Heale and is directed by Josephat Tjiho, a graduate of COTA. Different people from the location as well as a representative from the German Embassy watched the play. Tjiho says he is very happy that the event was a success and brought joy to the community. “It was a bit hard as language communication was a bit difficult with the actors as some of them don’t know how to speak English very well. But I am grateful that I have worked with amazing people of Babylon and would like to thank Karin Reignier, a theatre professional for helping us with this production,” says Tjiho. Reignier has been coming to Namibia ever since the late 1990s and has been doing different theatre plays at Babylon.