The Rise and Shine of Comrade Fiasco

A Play

Andrew Whaley

 

Synopsis

The setting is a Zimbabwe prison cell in 1986. It is occupied by two men and a woman who have been slung in the slammer after a bar-room brawl. Suddenly, their testy cohabitation is shattered by the arrival of Comrade Fiasco, a man who claims to be a former freedom fighter but who has spent the past seven years in a cave, unaware of his country’s transition to post-colonial independence. In an attempt to reconstruct Fiasco’s past, the three prisoners indulge in various forms of role-play and, in the process, reveal their doubts and fears about the present.

Review

In The Rise and Shine of Comrade Fiasco, Andrew Whaley has chosen to depict the recent revolutionary history of Zimbabwe in an oblique but poetic manner. - British Theatre Guide

Author

Andrew Whaley was one of the first white theatre artists who tried to establish multiracial theatre in post-independence Zimbabwe. His plays have won major awards.