Vanessa Obioha
Playwright and filmmaker Kesiene Obue will be bringing back her critically acclaimed stage play ‘Hertitude’ this festive season. The play was first staged at the Lagos Theatre Festival last March and received great reviews. The accolades it fetched inspired Obue to plan a comeback. And this time, she is throwing all in the ring to make it worthwhile. To ensure a top-notch production, her company Kessavier Vanille Productions partnered with ZMirage Multimedia Company to provide the lighting and other technical creativity to give the play the right mood; Motomedia, an advertising agency; Vida, a new premium household brand; and the Federal Ministry of Culture, offering support through the National Theater.
‘Hertitude’ tells the story of three siblings Rume, Ogor and Kesiena who were reunited after the devastating news of their mother’s sudden death. But the reunion was not an enthusiastic one, rather it opened Pandora’s box as the sisters peeped into their past and tried to evaluate their actions.
The December script according to Obue who also scripted the popular Bolanle Austen-Peters production ‘Bling Lagosians’, will see few changes to the narrative but the themes explored will remain intact.
“I wanted to touch three different classes of people. The elites that look down on others, the celebrities and stars we want to be like and the ordinary people that we outrightly condemn because of their lifestyle,” explained Obue.
She further stated that the play mirrors the different standards of the society regarding morality.
“’Hertitude’ is like a smokescreen of what individuals really are inside when people are not there, the real ugliness inside us, our flaws and imperfections,” she said.
Back to light up the Christmas and New Year season, ‘Hertitude’ will be staged in the bigger and purpose-built theater space of the renewed National Theater in Iganmu on December 14, 15, 21, 22, 25, 28, 29 and January 1, 4, 5, 2020.
