Celebrating women actors with The Rope
What you need to know:
The Rope, an investigative drama, is one woman’s story being retold by different people in their own versions. They twist it for their own advantage. From her toy boy, her father, husband and madam, it is clear everyone is lying, Linda inclusive.
It is not often that a thought-provoking production shows up and leaves the audience bewildered, involved and to some extent bored. All these groups of people were at the National Theatre as Lloyd Lutara’s The Rope premiered last week.
This was the first time The Rope was coming to the National Theatre and this was courtesy of House of Talents, Arts Treasure, Tebere Arts, Itara House and Bayimba Foundation, among others. In the past, The Rope has been staged at Alliance Francaise and Ndere Centre. The two shows were all directed by veteran actress and director, Kaya Kagimu Mukasa.
With the director returning with almost half her cast from the past stagings, she kept her audience glued, some of it was glued, well others were there for vibes.
The Rope follows Linda (Esteri Tebandeke), the daughter of one of Kampala’s premiere real estate moguls, who goes missing after attending fellowship, one fateful Wednesday evening.
A high profile investigation is opened to find her and the closest people to her are brought in for questioning – her father (Charles Mulekwa), her husband (Allan Samuel Mwanja), the madam (Eronie Bazongere Nalongo) and more.
The Rope is an investigative drama with different people being questioned about the situation. Each investigation, questioning or interview is a scene but it is not only serving mystery, but elevating the story. We learn that, at least every character presented to us is lying about something.
We learn that Linda had stopped fellowshipping months ago and had replaced fellowship with a hookup with a male escort. In fact, most of her close friends have not been fellowshipping either, but they insist they do.
But what the production gives us is one woman’s story being retold by different people in their own versions by twisting it for their own advantage. From her toy boy, her father, husband and madam, it is clear everyone has something to say about Linda and everyone has something they are lying about, Linda inclusive.
When the show premiered at the National Theatre on Friday the audience was a mixed crop of casual theatre goers and some that appreciate theatre for the art it offers. See, the writing of The Rope places the audience in the position of the investigation, we don't hear questions being asked to the actors but we hear them answer. The audience on day one took this literally and started ad-libbing through the show, making up their own questions and at times throwing actors off their characters and lines.
On day two however, a more theatre savvy audience was present and was more willing to listen to the characters without making interruptions and rewriting the script in show.
The Rope is part of National Theater's offerings to celebrate the month of women as well as theatre considering the fact that World Theatre Day falls on March 27. But the most important element
is celebrating women that are doing something different on the art and theatre scene.
These are women such as Mariam Ndagire, Deborah Asiimwe, Judith Adong, Angela Emurwon and Kaya Kagimu Mukasa among others.
