Upholding their commitment to entertain and educate young people, the award-winning John McLinn Ross Players of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff presented a thought-provoking and energetic production of “Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters” to hundreds of L.L. Owen Elementary students Tuesday.
Director of Theatre Cheryl Collins said seeing live actors gives young people a way to retain “the moral of the story” in a much more personal way and those lessons are not just learned, but remembered.
Collins has been working hard to train young artists and was proud to introduce as the director of the production, senior theatre major, Desiree Lucas.
“The cast is very gifted and, though it may be some of the actors’ first time on the stage, they are really stepping up to the plate,” Lucas said of working with fresh talent.
Written by John Steptoe and adapted by Karen Abbott, “Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters” is a classic tale of good character featuring two beautiful sisters, Nyasha and Manyara, who travel the same road, but find themselves in wildly different circumstances.
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Mufaro, played by Michael Arnold, was a happy man. Nyasha, played by Samille Palm, was kind and considerate as well as beautiful. Manyara, played by Alesia Wright, on the other hand, was selfish, bad-tempered and spoiled. All the people in the village, except Mufaro, were aware of Manyara’s behavior.
Manyara felt that Mufaro loved Nyasha more than he loved her and therefore, treated Nyasha unkindly. Though Manyara was unkind to Nyasha, Nyasha did not want others to tell their father about Manyara’s evil ways.
One day a messenger arrived and announced that the king had decided to take a wife and only “The Most Worthy and Beautiful Daughters” in the land were invited to appear before him. Mufaro declared proudly that only the king could choose between Nyasha and Manyara. Manyara, of course, thought otherwise and set out to make certain that she would be chosen.
Manyara left the village in the the middle of the night in an effort to get to the king before Nyasha. On her midnight journey, she stumbled across a homeless boy, whom she treated harshly and refused to share her food with; and old woman who warned her of evil spirits; and trees that laughed at her.
It was when Mufaro and Nyasha arose the next day to begin their journey to meet the king, that they discovered Manyara had left in the night. On their journey, Nyasha encountered the same homeless boy, yet she was kind to him and shared her food with him. The old woman who warned Manyara of evil spirits, gave Nyasha her blessings because Nyasha was also kind to her. And the very same trees that laughed at Manyara, bowed to Nyasha, showing their approval of her as the queen.
When Nyasha arrived at the palace, she was chosen as queen. Unbeknownst to her, the people she encountered on her journey were all placed there by the king to test her character. Manyara, on the other hand, became a servant in her sister’s palace.
This play is a part of the 2011-2012 Lost and Found Season of theatre because, visual artist, Steptoe was so moved by the history and beauty of the East African folktale that he created a lasting monument to it, able to be found in any public library. “Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale” won the 1988 American Library Association’s, Coretta Scott King Book Award for Illustration.
The final performance of the production will be held today at 3 p.m. at the Hathaway-Howard Fine Arts Building on the campus of UAPB. General admission tickets are $10 and $5 for students with ID and children under 12. Tickets are $6 for groups of 10 or more.