“A beautiful portrayal of nature, love and justice using physical theatre and real life experiences”
Mandala Theatre Company is an Oxfordshire based theatre company that devises and creates plays focussed on social justice and raising awareness. They are a platform for ethnically diverse performers and people from marginalised communities to engage with the arts and explore their identities and heritage through acting and performance. ‘Seed Guardians’ written and directed by Yasmin Sidhwa. The play is a UK touring production that tells an impactful story about 3 friends who are fighting against food poverty and exercising their right to protest. It is centred around Grandma Seed (Gogo) from Zimbabwe who collapses while at a march against food poverty, her granddaughter Zahra tries to uncover the truth alongside her friends Raf and Daniel. The writing in the play is incredibly powerful and well written using statistics and information to back up the storyline. The play was a profoundly moving and witty piece of art that I was lucky enough to have seen.
Yasmin Sidhwa created the script alongside poet Jenny Lewis who interweaved poetry throughout the play to incorporate heightened text and powerful words that flowed through the piece. The actors spoke precisely with beautiful articulation and projection to honour the poetry and its meaning. The lighting design choice complemented the costumes really well and enhanced the colours of the set and props as well.
The actors truly embodied the text and felt it deeply. This was essential for the depth of the script and the emotion that was required to do the storyline justice. It was poignant and beautifully portrayed. The scene changes were very well done and drove the story on swiftly. The physical theatre and movement aspects were brilliantly choreographed by Marie-Louise Flexen who created really connected and exciting moments of ensemble work. I was very impressed at the cast’s ability to multirole. Their characters were so different from each other and this was effective in telling the story in further detail. The stage was barely empty so I was constantly being fed new information and stories which kept me engaged and interested.
To explore the global impact of food poverty, the show used a white head statue with red eyes that spoke about the United States’ aims and thoughts on saving the worlds population against crop failure and starvation. This was very clever at explaining, on a global scale, what was happening. The music greatly accompanied the actors, and the story, using music to convey different cultures and backgrounds.
The show finished with a Q+A, which I thought was really interesting and useful that went into detail about the play from a different perspective, from the actors and creatives. The play finished with beautiful colours of plants and growth and a wonderful monologue performed by Mya Fraser who played Zahra to honour her Gogo’s life and impact on her and the planet. ‘Seed Generations’ is going on tour across the UK for the next 2 months and I really recommend you go if you want to be challenged politically and emotionally.