While objectivity remains paramount in sharing a love of theatre, there are times when one’s biases (read: preferences, context, understanding) also shape the response to stellar work.
Such is the case with the rolling world/Toronto premiere and opening night of Zambian-Canadian actor/playwright Natasha Mumba’s extraordinary Copperbelt. Several plot twists in the second act leave me on the edge of my seat, wondering what else will be unearthed.
The production marks Mumba’s playwriting debut.
Directed with precise vision by Nina Lee Aquino, Copperbelt asks its audience what it means to give back to the family legacy. Doing so will cost something. It is that word ‘cost’ that becomes the focus. Along with financial capitalist ‘cost,’ the play also explores what it means to be ethical in giving back to others and to the family legacy, and the cost of doing so.
By the end of the play, secrets have been unravelled. Truths and half-truths are unveiled. Lies and a lack of full transparency are shocking when they rear their heads. What is even more alarming is the characters’ ethical response (or lack thereof) to what has happened. The final costs of the family legacy have become clear, and the audience’s response is overwhelming. The raucous applause at the end of the play is a strong indicator of its impact.
Eden (Natasha Mumba) is caught between two very different worlds. An operations manager at a prestigious international mining firm in Toronto, she lives with Peter (Rick Roberts), one of her bosses, who is older and newly divorced from his first wife. Eden and Peter have just returned from an evening out, and they have strong opinions about what happened before they arrived home. The audience sees a flashback to when the two first met.
Eden is also estranged from her family in Zambia’s Copperbelt Region. She comes from an extremely wealthy background. The expectations her family imposed on her remain one reason she is reluctant to return to visit them. Life takes an unfortunate turn when her father, Chimfwembe Kasuba (Kapembwa Wanjelani), suffers a heart attack. Although it has been years since she was home, Eden decides to return to Zambia to reconnect with her mother, Harriet (Warona Setshwaelo); her brother, Musolo (Eric Miracle); her sister, Lombe (Makambe K. Simamba); and her husband, Dalitso (Dondwani Elliott Zulu).
All is not well when Eden returns to Zambia. She holds an uncomfortable conversation with her father at one point. There’s extreme tension between her and her siblings. There’s a noticeable void between Eden and her mother, Harriet. As Natasha writes in her Director’s Note about this family: “[it is] a beautifully complex, truly messy, contradictory and complicated Zambian family.”
Rachel Forbes’s set design of tall, angular walls, pushed and pulled with elegance by cast members to set each scene, creates a seamless blend of Eden’s Canadian world and her family’s. It’s as if Eden cannot extricate herself from either world. Forbes’s costume selections delineate each character with exactness. Michelle Ramsay aptly captures the differences in lighting between the two worlds. When the lights go out in the family’s home, and there’s a momentary wait for the generator to kick in, a lingering suspense hovers in the air, thick with tension, as two of the characters remain in a heated conversation. Romeo Candido’s sound design and composition subtly underscore the emotional intensity of each scene. Tawiah Ben M’Carthy’s specified movement is entrancing to watch.
Kapembwa Wanjelani is commanding, controlling, and calculating as Eden’s father, Chimfwembe. Although he’s ill, there’s still a tyrannical streak in the man, evident at the family dinner. Warona Setshwaelo is feisty and firmly rooted in her beliefs. While she is undoubtedly aware of the realities of her husband’s dealings, she remains grounded in verisimilitude when she asks everyone to leave the dining room. Setshwaelo controls that moment magnificently, and it’s one of the evening’s highlights.
Makambe K. Simamba is sassy, sexy and sultry as Eden’s younger sister, Lombe, who also holds her own in a strong performance, especially in her standoff with her husband Dalitso at the end. While Kondwani Elliott Zulu’s Dalitso may appear to fear his father-in-law as his boss, his confrontation with Lombe is heartfelt and long overdue. As Lombe and Eden’s brother, Eric Miracle’s Musolo provides some comic relief along with poignant dramatic moments when the truth comes out about the relationship with his unseen wife.
Rick Roberts and Natasha Mumba’s believable chemistry as husband and wife is sensually palpable. There’s an intense, fiery passion between their Peter and Eden at the top of the show. While Roberts closes out Act One with an appropriate one-liner that nearly blows the roof from the Baillie Theatre with much-needed laughter, some jarring gasps of dismay in Act Two lead me to think why Eden did not see the true Peter sooner.
It is Natasha Mumba’s sharply delivered and carefully nuanced performance as Eden that remains the primary reason to see Copperbelt. Her Eden is ambitious, smart, focused and determined to do things her way and no one else’s. When she begins to see people for who and what they are, the audience becomes pumped and applauds her vociferously for what she has accomplished on her own terms.
By the end of the play, Eden has successfully achieved what she wants. There are some final surprises for the audience as well. Even Roberts’ Peter recognizes that he has fallen into a possible, calculated trap set by Eden.
Yet the question remains: Is the financial and familial cost truly worth it for Eden? How different is she from her father and the familial world of which she wanted no part?
A daring, bold, and uncompromising theatrical production, Copperbelt still resonates with me today for its moments of necessary humour, startling revelations, and big-picture questioning that make for good theatre.
Please see it.
Running time: approximately two hours and thirty minutes with one interval/intermission.
The production runs to March 1 in the Baillie Theatre in the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 50 Tank House Lane, Toronto. For tickets: youngcentre.ca or call 1-416-866-8666.
SOULPEPPER and NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE present
Copperbelt by Natasha Mumba
WORLD PREMIERE/TORONTO PREMIERE
Directed by Nina Lee Aquino
Set and Costume Design: Rachel Forbes
Lighting Design: Michelle Ramsay
Sound Designer and Composer: Romeo Candido
Movement Director: Tawiah Ben M’Carthy
Stage Manager: Tamara Protic
Performers: Natasha Mumba, Eric Miracle, Rick Roberts, Warona Setshwaelo, Makambo K. Simamba, Kapembwa Wanjelani, Kondwani Elliott Zulu
