Tell us about your character in a nutshell.
I play Anaia (also called Naia). Anaia is incredibly brave, smart and wise. She walks through the world with burn scars so visible that people don’t look her in her eyes when they engage with her. Yet she shows up, shows out and maintains empathy, compassion and soul every single day. What drives Anaia throughout this journey is a combination of loyalty towards her sister Racine, her Mama Ruby and the desire to get answers to questions that she has been sitting with for 18 years. After reuniting with her mother for the very first time after 18 years, Naia’s enamoured by her, yet brewing with those questions. Her mother tells the story of how her and her sister ended up with their burns, providing Naia pieces to her puzzle, yet she ends the visit with a task so great that it makes Naia sick to her stomach. She’s convinced she cannot do it, but eventually gathers momentum from her sister who reminds her that this journey is not only for their mother’s peace, but for theirs too. It is for them to vindicate themselves after years of injustice suffered in the foster care system, and years of having nothing. Naia’s soon on board with the task, yet determined to do it on her terms, shedding as little blood as possible. Which is completely opposite to how Racine is determined to complete the task.
Masego Pitso as Racine and Henrietta Enyonam Amevor as Anaia in Is God Is. Photo: Pia Johnson
What has it been like working with Co-Directors Zindzi Okenyo and Shari Sebbens?
When I first read this play, I saw it as EPIC, and BIG and GRAND, and what Zindzi and Shari have managed to do with bringing it to life on stage with our cast, crew and creative team is just phenomenal. From the costumes to set design to lights and music – everything in this play has come together to breathe its epic, big and grand nature on stage. We’re so lucky to have these directors, and this creative team to do it. There’s no one better.
Zindzi and Shari have created a rehearsal room that is led by hard work, trust, heart and fun. They trust us, give us space to play, to try, to fall and to land. They’re constantly asking, ‘What do you want to do instinctively? How large can your truth live on stage?’ and then guide us to meet the work from there. For me as an actor, that’s really special, and makes me want to give this work everything I’ve got, and do it justice.
The cast and Co-Directors during rehearsals for Is God Is. Photo: Joshua Scott
What resonates most for you within the show?
This play is WILD. There’s not one thing that writer Aleshea Harris doesn’t ask us to do to bring it to life. And how often is it that Black actors get to just play on stage without needing to explain the Black experience? It’s a play about crazy, awful, heartbreaking, funny, loving, tender moments that happen to characters who just happen to be Black. And of course, our experience is intended in the text, and you feel it when you're watching as an audience member, but within that we still get to be ourselves.
Aleshea Harris has written a play that decentres whiteness, and gives her characters the chance to just exist as they are. That is so special and fun for me as an actor to play. It really counteracts that idea that a play with all-Black characters must exist to educate audiences on the Black experience. And while plays that do discuss racism and the Black experience are so necessary, plays like Is God Is are equally so. Both have a place, both are needed to give us the space to be seen as who we are, full humans.
What big questions does the script ask of you in playing this character?
How does anger, violence and determination live in our bodies? What does it make us do? Is there a right or wrong way to respond to injustice? And what happens when you’ve been stepped on for so long and decide that you are no longer going to be? These questions are big ideas of ‘right vs. wrong’ and the blurred lines between them when the wrong is justified.
This is your Melbourne Theatre Company debut. What has surprised or challenged you, or been different about working on this show?
I haven’t yet met a soul at Melbourne Theatre Company that isn’t committed to the work they are doing there. It is so evident that they love what they do because they do it so well. The level of care, commitment and generosity that we’ve experienced throughout our rehearsal season, is just a great testament to how much Melbourne Theatre Company cares about the work they are putting on, and how they want it to be a space where everyone can thrive. It is such an honour to be here, to be doing this play, in Naarm, with this company, and this crew and this cast.
Published on 27 June 2023
