Hungani Ndlovu talks about his new theatre production 'Kill Move Paradise'

Every time the name Hungani Ndlovu is mentioned fans quickly go back to his unforgettable role as Romeo on e.tv's Scandal.

Hungani is now pushing the envelope with his character on a theatre play called Kill Move Paradise making its way to Joburg Theatre on February 11.

The play is written by African American playwright James Ijames. Award-winning theatre director Lesedi Job secured the rights for the play and it is co-produced by 2nd Round Productions. 

This makes Lesedi the first and only African director to lend her artistic prowess to the play. It draws inspiration from the Black Lives Matter movement telling the story from a SA interpretation and perspective

Speaking to TshisaLIVE, Hungani said his character strikes a little resemblance to him.

“I play Grif and he is not so different from who I am and as well as his life experience but obviously the play is set in America. So one of the tricks is working on my American script and also the scholar because I'm not much of a scholar — just having to wrap my head about the way scholars think. It's still a journey of discovery so we will see as the weeks go by.”

In the play four black men find themselves stuck in a waiting room for the afterlife as they attempt to make sense of their new paradise. Isa, Daz, Grif, and Tiny are forced to confront the reality of their past, and how they arrived in that place. Hungani said he found the concept of playing a dead character challenging.

“It was actually challenging getting into rehearsals because I, as Hungani, found it challenging to accept the concept of death in our reality just not knowing ... I'm a Christian and obviously there's going to heaven or hell etc, just like not really being able to understand what happens when we die.”

He said the pandemic and the amount of deaths in the country made it surreal and it was such a challenge. 

“Getting into the rehearsal space actually helped liberate that fear for me because I was basically getting to dive in a certain narrative of what could possibly happen when we die.”  

The play dabbles in what the other side looks like for these men and the journey of transcending.

“No-one can really say this is what the other side really looks like — none of us are dead. So it's a journey of transcending and the play is a very much a BlackLives Matter play. So it stresses the narrative of blacks in the States and what they experience and the vicious ways in which they die. That's Grif realising he is there and accepting where he is at and doing the necessary things he has to do to transcend to the next life or whether it's the afterlife.”

Hungani was able to flex his muscles as an actor and allow his imagination to take him to how human beings actually function when they are dead.

“It's not a realism play, because we are dead. So even that allowed for me to even explore things with my body and how I move. Who knows how we move in purgatory — maybe we are floating, crawling or flying. Things like that just allowed the process to be so much and not orthodox because it's not a realism play.” 

Kill Move Paradise runs at Joburg Theatre from February 11 to February 27.