Don’t do it, that is, unless you haven’t learned anything from the albeit fictional accounts of what happened to doctors Nicholas Garrigan, who treated Ugandan leader Idi Amin in the 2006 film, The Last King of Scotland, or Andrew Peric, called in to care for Robert Mugabe, ruler of Zimbabwe, in Fraser Grace’s Breakfast with Mugabe, now receiving its East Coast premiere at Centenary Stage Company through November 21.
Peric is a psychiatrist, a third generation Zimbabwean with “a unique insight into the Shona (Mugabe’s tribe) mind.” He has been called in by Mugabe’s wife Grace to free her husband from an ngozi, a bitter, malevolent spirit that haunts him, making him frightened of his own shadow and causing chaos in the family and possibly losing the presidency on the eve of the 2002 elections. Subject to Mugabe’s whims regarding therapy, Peric presses the leader on his role in the country’s liberation from white rule to determine whether the paranoia is induced by guilt or real, which gets the doctor into deeper hot water than he bargained for and leads to his own undoing. (L-R above: Ezra Barnes is Alexander Peric, Che Ayende is Gabriel, Michael Rogers is Robert Mugabe and Roslyn Coleman is Grace Mugabe; photo by Carl Wallnau) Running 105 minutes without an intermission, Breakfast with Mugabe provides an interesting history lesson on the politics of this social and economic ruin of a country. Even if most of the names are unfamiliar to American audiences, the tactics used by their bearers ring true: rebellion by natives against a white land grab, occupation and brutal repression of the blacks; imprisonment of the native leaders, their release and a subsequent war of liberation; and a final plan by the newly “elected” leaders to totally destroy their white enemies.
Over the course of five sessions, Peric extracts the specific details from his patient, who is only too happy to boast about his tactics and successes. The problem is that such writing makes for interminable talk, talk, talk; not much physical happens until the penultimate scene, which is too late—but I won’t spoil the outcome for you.
David Shookhoff’s direction almost saves the play from being static; scene changes are smooth and quick, and the actors remember and deliver a great number of lines in a natural manner. And the acting is beyond superb. Ezra Barnes is wonderful as Dr. Peric, the tobacco famer/physician who naively assumes he can set professional parameters with his patient and even thinks that he can shame the man into accepting guilt for his country’s woes. This is a man who thinks of himself as Zimbabwean first and murungu (white) second, a view to which Mugabe et al don’t subscribe. While Michael Rogers may not have the stocky, muscular physique of the actual Mugabe, his mellifluous voice and slick, unctuous exterior hide the heart and mind of a dangerous madman. When he laughs, he shows a set of big teeth that make him look like a mean mule, yet the tenderness in his voice as he talks about his first wife co-rebel Sally Hafron makes the character a complicated man. His Mugabe a force to be reckoned with.
Even scarier is Che Ayende as Gabriel, a member of the country’s Central Intelligence Organization and the President’s staff. Ayende’s Gabriel is one malevolent, scary dude. He never raises his voice or changes his facial expression—mostly bland and blank—but I’d hate to meet him in a dark alley, or even a fully lighted room, for that matter. The third member of this treacherous troika is Mugabe’s trophy wife Grace, played by Rosalyn Coleman as an alternately charming and imperious woman. Forty years Mugabe’s junior, she merely wants to escape the suffocating atmosphere of the presidential mansion in Harare and demands that Peric make it happen. It’s a fine kettle of fish Peric that finds himself caught in, one from which he won’t be able to escape unscathed.
Lee Savage has designed a set that looks like the de rigueur dictator’s sitting room, complete with ornate French furniture upholstered in gold brocade, crystal chandelier, silver tea/coffee set and marble walls. Julia Sharp’s costumes are mostly utilitarian-suits and blazers for the men, but the native get-up she provides for Grace is a knock-out.
Breakfast with Mugabe has the requisite ingredients for a riveting play—an idealistic young doctor, his cynical and nasty nemesis, a beautiful but dangerous woman and an evil bodyguard. But playwright Grace has overwritten the piece, making the therapy scenes drag on too long and leading the audience to long for a physical payoff. The result, my mind wandered from time to time, and I had to force myself to focus on the details. However, if you are looking for great acting, Breakfast with Mugabe has the right menu! And the final scene will render you speechless.
Breakfast with Mugabe will be performed at the Edith Bolte Kutz ’42 Theater in the new Lackland Center on the campus of Centenary College in Hackettstown Thursdays at 7:30 PM; Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM; and Sundays at 2:30 PM through November 21. Tickets are available online at http://www.centenarystageco.org/, and at the CSC box office 908.979.0900 Monday through Friday, from 1-5 PM.
