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Time to have it phased out and replaced with new stuff is up, but The Anointed is proving resilient.
Instead of paving way for Betrayed—a play to be launched by Wanna Do soon—Anointed is clinging on, wanting to have many more anointed, thanks to continued appetite from University of Malawi students.
The first of the students to get ‘the welcome back’ message from Anointed were Polytechnic students last Friday. Then, the entertainment goes to Chancellor College, which is expected to reopen mid-August after a month-long break. Finally, Anointed goes to Bunda, where besides welcoming the students into a brand new academic year, the play will also say the final goodbye.
“We were about to launch our new play Betrayed, but pressure from students from the University of Malawi has forced us to do otherwise. When we were about to launch the new play, we got the message from Polytechnic students, saying they have reopened and wanted to watch the play,” said Wanna Do leader Gertrude Kamkwatira after the Poly show.
“Same requests have come from Chanco and Bunda, and we cannot do otherwise but go and perform there. We don’t want to disappoint our fans,” she said.
At Polytechnic, it was expressions like ‘nature does not allow a vacuum’, ‘the church is made up of wheat and weeds’, ‘I want to feel the electricity inside you’, ‘I am not sure I will succeed him because there is no sign of dying, the man has been ill for the past 20 years’, and so on, that kept patrons—who included students and outsiders—laughing throughout the performance.
Estere (Gertrude Kamkwatira), Amadue (Nellie Chikhosi), Ezra (Jeremia Mwaungulu), Joy Mpweteza and evergreen Pedro (Gift Namachekecha) did extremely well to keep the patrons, who completely filled the Main Lecture Theatre (MLT) in loud laughter.
“I have been impressed by the patronage. I like this place because every time I am here there is no disappointment,” said Kamkwatira. The show was better off compared to one the group held at the place about four months ago. It was marred by noise caused by late-coming patrons.
“I have always liked this play because of the way it is organised. Every actor knows what to do when time to perform comes,” said Bwighane Matupi, one of the patrons to the Friday show.
Anointed is a play about a refugee from Bagamoyo who, because of his tailoring skills, is offered place at the king’s palace. But things get worse for him when he rapes the Queen. He is thrown into prison but is freed after treating the Prince’s snakebite.
However, the King’s decision to anoint him second in command proves detrimental as he starts working on bringing down the kingdom.
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