By Stephen Weir
The Tarragon’s Additional Area seats solely about 100 patrons. And whereas they’ve a a lot bigger theater of their midtown constructing (close to Casa Loma), the dimensions is of utmost significance to anybody considering seeing a brand new play that really takes place in Guyana. Don’t suppose you may get away with ready till the final minute to purchase a ticket!
The play, “A Poem for Rabia,” has its world premiere on October twenty fifth and is already packing the theater throughout this week’s preview efficiency. The piece, written by Nikki Shaffeeullah in her playwriting debut, runs within the Additional Area from now till November 12.
“The play is an epic journey throughout time, oceans, and tectonic shifts in political historical past for 3 Indo-Caribbean ladies. ‘A Poem for Rabia’ weaves the tales of three queer ladies from the identical bloodline: Zahra, a disillusioned activist in 2053, navigating a Canada that has simply abolished prisons; Betty, in 1953 British Guyana, caught between her new secretarial job on the Governor’s workplace and the rising nationwide independence motion; and Rabia, an Indian home employee in 1853, kidnapped by colonial ‘recruiters’ and despatched crusing from Calcutta to the Caribbean on an indentured labor ship,” explains Creative Director Mike Payette.
The actors on this play contains Caribbean Digital camera’s favorite Toronto stage actress Virgilia Griffith, Michelle Mohammed, Adele Noronha, Jay Northcott and Nikki Shaffeeullah (“Zahra”).
There haven’t been many Canadian stage performs have actors talking with a Guyanese accent. Whereas lots of the forged have a familiarity with the Caribbean neighborhood, they engaged Andrew Prashad, a dialect coach.
On social media he wrote “a part of the play takes place in Guyana, so your boy was referred to as in to assist educate how we does speak an suh.”
