Hinda is captivating in one-woman play

IT’S not easy to get a crowd out at 15h30 on a Saturday afternoon.

Even harder to hold them in the palm of your hand as you manoeuvre through three intense and emotional monologues with no lights, no scenery and no gimmicks to help you along the way.

Taking the stage with naught but a red bathrobe and a hat to tell the heartbreaking story of a girl whose mother has all but locked her away and thrown away the key, Hazel tries her hand at a subtle Southern American accent with the captivating talent of voice that sees the young woman fall and rise through anger and insanity.

Next effortlessly embodying Poo, a woman who has been verbally and physically abused by her mother and brother, Hinda expounds on her theme of women and our triumph over adversity in a stark and stirring monologue that dovetails neatly into ‘She Used to Live There’ with the simple drop of a hair bow and a stunning change in character.

Here a woman is perhaps at her worst, desperately begging a man not to leave her and vowing to complete an assignment that will make her all he wants and needs.

Skillfully cutting the character in two, Hinda fires back at the weaker self and tells her that she misunderstood ‘the assignment’ because the task is to sit on one’s womanly throne and never honour a man with our crystal jewel tear drops.

Raging, lyrical and self-penned, ‘She Used to Live There’ is a powerful piece that pities no woman.

Instead Hinda urges us to take our place as queens and states unequivocally that when the boy who knocks us down comes knocking thinking he owns our beauty and our person, our only answer should be:

That girl who pleaded to be accepted? She used to live here.

Would ‘She Used to Live There’ have benefited from a night time showing replete with a spotlight, a glass of moody red and the sheer majesty of night? Certainly.

But as Hinda stated and eagerly proved to her modest audience who watched in awe is that theatre doesn’t have to be anything more than a man or a woman on stage simply stepping into someone else and telling a story.

For the simple reason of reminding themselves they can.

Here’s hoping we see so much more from Hinda post her presentation of this piece at Darling’s Voorkamerfest this week.

Here’s hoping fellow thespians will take a leaf out of Hinda’s barebones book and simply stand up and stir.

– martha@namibian.com.na;

@marth__vader on Twitter and Instagram