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THEATRE, like other art forms, is a mirror of society. Others have said theatre is nothing but a community’s library, because it’s in community theatre that you will find a lot of community stories, good and bad, past and present. Theatre has also been used to capture a lot of a people’s history — our history.
The biggest problem in this country is that our theatre has mostly been oral — and after one or two public performances most stories have gone on to die natural deaths. Also sad is the fact that our theatre stories have no life out of the theatre and rehearsal room as very few stories often find themselves published and living in book format — a reason why students in school continue to read the same plays and same authors year in and year out.
Community theatre has been with us since independence, and even beyond, and has seen it all and covered most, if not all the important stories. Stories of occupation, colonisation, suppression, uprising, liberation war and post-independence. You will find this in the archives of community theatre.
Post-independence period you will find stories about the infamous economic structural adjustment programme (Esap), stories about Gukurahundi and other important events in our history. I personally remember plays like the late Norman Takawira’s My Struggle done at the height of Esap. Township
Artistes had their award winning Township Poverty on the same issue — the devastating effect of the economic programme on the ordinary masses.
There are plays like Stitsha, Heaven’s Diary, Strange Bedfellows, Mhondoro and a hundred others that different communities in Zimbabwe have produced. Unfortunately, most, if not all of these, cannot be found or accessed by the public today and we all know why.
Throughout whatever difficulties theatre continues to be the voice of the voiceless; a quality that saw the Mugabe regime coming down heavily on theatre, especially plays that were critical of the status quo. Plays like Final Push, Super Patriots & Morons, Good President, Ghosts, The Missing 15 Billion and others were deemed not fit for public consumption and banned. The banning of these plays and harassment of some of the playwrights only served to show how intolerant (to dissenting or divergent voices) the previous dispensation was.
With the coming in of the new dispensation things have been a little different. Starting with Jah Prayzah’s song about a new dispensation led by a ‘‘gamba’’ to the hilarious comedy about the removal of Robert Mugabe from State House titled Regasi. This Masvingo comedy has received critical acclaim from audiences in both Masvingo and Harare. As I write some Bulawayo artistes led by Nkue Nkala aka Khuliyo are working on a play Robert, about the life and times of Robert Mugabe.
The play is set to be premièred during the Trade Fair period. Yours truly is also working on a play inspired by the removal of the former president titled The Last Days of King Afrika. All these plays would not have seen the light of day during Mugabe’s reign. In fact, most of the playwrights who have decided to come out and test the tolerance levels of the new dispensation would not have done so six or seven months ago.
The arts sector is all waiting to see what will happen to these plays or artistic voices that seem to be saying the unusual and going against the grain.
These are exciting times and we are all excited. It seems the long awaited freedom of artistic expression is finally being handed out to artistes. Or its just a façade — a mirage.
Whatever, the case, most artistes are currently dancing, furtively glancing behind their shoulders, still uneasy and not sure how long this period of “tolerance” will last. So as they dance, we are reminded of David Ian Rabery’s words, uttered in 1989:
‘‘It seems to me impossible that the state and the artiste should enjoy anything but a fleeting similarity of interest, usually in the aftermath of a revolution when the artiste mistakenly believes his imagination will be licensed as part of the cultural rebirth of a new order.’’
Is this what is happening? Are we, as artistes, in that fleeting moment of false hope? Was the ousting of Mugabe the beginning of a new relationship between the state and artists? Only time will tell.
Online Reporter