Guest Blog: Co-director Tonderai Munyevu On THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

Who doesn't love Oscar Wilde? That was probably the starting point of how we ended up doing this "very radical" production of The Importance of Being Earnest.

As Two Gents Productions, we are not averse to taking a classical text and turning it over its own head (sometimes ending up right where we started). We do so time and time again.

We did it with Hamlet, which became Kupenga Kwa Hamlet - set in pre-colonial Zimbabwe with me and my fellow actor dressed in orange boiler suits, mercurially moving from one iconic character to the next.

But this is the very first time that we have done Wilde. And it's been Wilde: funny, irreverent with a dose of wisdom hidden in all the frolics. It's also the first time as a company we've had a female duo, which led me to co-directing (with Arne Pohlmeier).

Which in itself is also rather Wild(e) - how to facilitate all that fun and hijinks and leave the stage for two prime performers, and resist the urge to join them? In the end, it was quite easy to leave the stage to Kudzanayi Chiwawa and Ayesha Casely-Hayford, because they are badass.

We did question whether this show is "radical" at all. What is that anyways? I suppose we have two female actors performing it. Has this not been done before? Also, it's black women doing it - does that mean it's "radical"? Women. Black women. Performing a text usually reserved for nine white people. I think, in the world at large, there is a sense that black women are not allowed to be playful?

Yet, working on it, it didn't feel radical. It felt fun. After all, what is a black production? We have wrestled with whether we needed a framing device in presenting this piece. In other words - an explanation for why women. Why black women.

But we have moved on. No explanations. What's the difference between an explanation and an apology? And what is black? How do you quantify it on stage? Apart from black bodies on stage. Which I suppose are always made political.

Doubly so black female bodies. What a black woman means to me is not what it means to someone else. Come to think of it, I don't even consider it when looking at this show. It's just a lot of fun. Basically, you can read into it what you think.

Same goes for the setting. Where are we? Should it be set somewhere in Africa because the two actors have Zimbabwean and Ghanaian heritage? Why do we need a setting?

It's set on the day you see it, because what is happening in front of you changes, and you might have to take part in it as an audience. The performance is alive. The accents are as varied as we hear them around us. Nothing is fixed. Not even gender. I find that exciting.

Ultimately, the most radical thing about our Earnest is that it is actually about the importance of BEING earnest. Of not pretending, faking, apologising, hiding, or keeping secrets. The importance of going towards what you need, of healing, of growing up, of finding the source of your own pain and subverting it into something else - maybe "bunburyism"( if you don't know what this means, come to the show!), or maybe something else far more profound than the pecking order of your position in society.

In these times we live in, theatre needs that profound earnestness. Kudzanayi Chiwawa and Ayesha Casely-Hayford have it in spades. They use it to find physical, verbal and emotional comedy.

Two Gents Productions and Tara Arts' co-production of The Importance of Being Earnest is playing 27 February-16 March

Photo credit: Harry Elletson