Online Reporter
Ray Mawerera
THERE is this young fellow, Farai, who is just dumb and blundering when it comes to communicating with girls, among other things.
There is just no other way of describing it. He is so blitheringly clumsy that he almost talks himself out of his own wedding to a prize bride, the dashingly beautiful lovestruck Chipo.
They met at the river, in the village.
Farai thought she was a village girl, but she was not. He offered her a wild flower.
She got him to help put her claypot down from her head. Then, in a girlish prank when he least expected such behaviour, she pulled his pants down to reveal purple boxer shorts . . . and sped off, laughing at her own naughtiness. And that is how they connected.
The boxer shorts became his love token to her, and he got something of hers, too, in return, but he could not find it later when it was needed. Typical.
Now here he is, months later, lobola paid and waiting for their Big Day, the two of them.
So, he takes his beloved fiancé for lunch and orders an expensive meal, with a bottle of champagne to top it off.
Lovestruck Chipo, not really interested in the food, is animated as she tries to talk colour codes and bridal team combinations to him. But he is distracted and does not seem to share her excitement.
Farai lacks finesse, tact and timing, and makes his first major blunder, right when she is smiling lovingly into his eyes while dreamily chattering away.
“There will be no white wedding!” he blurts out, rather crudely.
Shock. Horror. Disbelief. Dismay.
Chipo’s entire face transforms as a big smile gives way to mournful incredulity.
Stunned to silence mid-sentence, she scoffs at the absurdity of it all.
Who takes his girl out for lunch to make such a preposterous announcement?
Our Farai does not seem to get it and makes it worse: “Look, I made a promise to someone . . .”
He does not get to finish, of course.
Chipo, dazed, panic-stricken and dumbfounded, literally crashes out of that restaurant and heads straight home to equally disbelieving and angry parents.
Blame it all on Sekuru Tobias, the chain-smoking, cross-belted city slicker with strong traditional principles, the brother of Farai’s late mother . . .
“Wedding Night” premièred as a full-length feature film at Harare’s Theatre in the Park recently.
It is a project of Creative Native, the feature films, serialised dramas and documentaries business unit of Rooftop Promotions, arguably Zimbabwe’s most prolific arts organisation today.
“Wedding Night” is the big-screen adaptation of the play of the same title, created by the late celebrated playwright Stephen Chifunyise. It ran to sold-out audiences around 2008, again popularised at Rooftop’s old Theatre in the Park.
Audience response is hard to fake. With Theatre in the Park packed to the rafters, “Wedding Night” had the house ooh-ing and aah-ing right from the river scene at the beginning.
There was laughter, applause, exclamations of disapproval at the deviousness of some characters who — correctly — portrayed the penchant of some people to seek to profit from even the most reverent of occasions.
The film — as well as the play — throws open a current debate which, in itself, shows how far-ahead-looking Chifunyise was.
Or that, sometimes, time just stands still.
What was a debate yesterday is still topical today, tampered a little by the dynamic evolution and impact of technological advancement. Culture is culture after all and, though it too evolves in response to changing environments, sometimes stubbornly insists on staying a certain course, to fight assimilation, to fight dissonance wrought by stronger cultures that threaten to swallow it whole, to fight oblivion.
That, for me, was the whole crux of the theme of “Wedding Night”.
In contextualising it, Chifunyise layered it with other sub-themes and topics — circumcision and sexual reproductive health rights and rites, traditional protocols (the roles of tetes, sekurus and sahwiras, totemic nuances), the coexistence and/or friction between modern religious beliefs and practices and traditional ones . . . and one felt these were thrown in to frame the context within which the story was narrated without threatening the storyline itself.
Technically the picture quality is clear, crisp and clean.
There may have been one or two angle and colour issues here and there, but they were not too obvious. There were also some sound glitches and background noises in the one screened at the première and I spied the tech crew eyeing each other as if they had not reviewed it prior to screening. But if the audience noticed it, they accepted it without much fuss . . . and there were actors and filmmakers among them.
Some may have noticed, too, the occasional disconnect between the English subtitles and the actual on-screen dialogue, or even the literal translations in places.
My advice: Some emotional outbursts and language expressions are largely untranslatable and where the audience demographic is heavily skewed towards the language of the product, translating such can be waived. It is not that much of a train smash.
The acting was outstanding and near-faultless. The strong characters successfully camouflaged any weaker parts.
I was impressed by the confidence of lead actress Natalie Burutsa (Chipo), and it turned out this was her debut role — stage or screen — which was hard to believe, so well did she pull it off.
But then again, she is a veritable chip off the old block, being the daughter of veteran actress Chipo Bizure, who herself plays one of the aunties in the film.
Blundering Farai is played convincingly by Everson Chiedza.
Vindicated by audience acclamation, my awards for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress easily go to Admire Kuzhangaira, aka Uncle Bhutisi (Sekuru Tobias), and Eunice Tava (Tete Fadzi), whose antics kept the audience in stitches.
All in all, it is a cast of (amazingly) less than 20, including extras.
The mix impressively casts veteran actors of stage and screen, such as the great Stephen Chigorimbo (Chipo’s father) and Elizabeth Majongwe (Chipo’s mother), alongside middle-aged and younger actors and actresses: Nothando Nobengula, Felistous Tizola, Mercy Chirikure, Blessing Simataa, Clarence Borerwe and Chipo Bizure.
Daves Guzha produced and directed this film, with the screenplay by Patience Gamu Tawengwa, assisted by a production crew almost as large in number as the cast itself.
When she spoke after the screening, Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture Deputy Minister Emily Jesaya could not hide her excitement that such productions could come out of Zimbabwe.
She encouraged filmmakers and the broader arts community to come out of the closet and showcase what Zimbabwe is really made of.
Oh, there is a happy ending to the story . . . Blundering Farai got to finally have an exciting traditional wedding with his prize bride, though he blundered again on the night itself after drinking too much happiness. The less said about that the better. Just go and watch it when it runs again.
Rooftop Promotions says it plans to roll out countrywide weekend screenings of “Wedding Night” for audiences outside Harare, while ZTV has partnered to screen it on its television screens and digital platforms.
Rating: 16+
Ray Mawerera is a veteran journalist and communications expert. He is also the author of the NAMA-award-winning fictional novella “Zagamo: The War Within” and the critically acclaimed short story collection “Jeremiah’s Wives”. He writes in his personal capacity.
