Should playwrights prescribe solutions?

, some members of the audience felt strongly that playwrights should not just ask questions or present dilemma in the plays but present solutions to the problems they raise.
Post production discussion chairperson, Tafadzwa Muzondo, concluded that the issues in the play would take 365 days without an agreement.
The reason being that there were those who felt strongly that the playwrights should not present solutions to enable the audiences to grapple with the issues raised and find solutions.
There were also some who felt strongly that the woman does not take up solutions for various reasons which included fear of what people would say if she divorced, sought a piece order against her husband, went on separation, or sought the advice of a marriage counsellor.
The Patience Tawengwa directed and Rooftop promotions produced “365” is about gender based violence in a marriage in which a “small house” is a major cause of the violence in a twenty five-year-old marriage.
Even the solution that is brought about by the sister of the husband, to regularise the “small house” affair as a polygamous marriage is a solution as the playwright does not venture further into showing or suggesting other solutions after that has been indicated.
What arose from the post production discussion is the view that playwrights who do not point to solutions are either not aware that audiences want them to show what they think should be done?
It was as if the playwright who does not prescribe solutions to the problems or challenges he or she raises in his or her play has not completed the expected task of a playwright.
Indeed it was as if the approach of not prescribing solutions make Zimbabwean plays inadequate or incomplete a.
It was sounded as if this approach demonstrated that Zimbabwean playwrights are not prepared to take a stand or to be identified with a definitive point of view.
It was interesting to note that some of those members of the audience who felt strongly that playwrights should be bold enough to be identified with a definitive point of view were actors and directors.
This showed that this debate is as rife among theatre practitioners themselves as it is among the ordinary members of the audience.
A playwright who did not have the opportunity to contribute his views about this issue during the post production discussion, Musekiwa Samuriwo wondered whether or not the post production discussions would have taken place at all if the “365” had offered conclusions.
He further indicated that he was relieved to see the play conclude in the manner it did because whatever solutions the playwright would have come up with would not be able to take on board the various options of dealing with the wife bashing crime presented by “365”.
In reality “365” asked those women in marriages to choose a way out of the crisis highlighted in the play.
Some expressed the view that a culture that rationalises or tolerates gender based violence, should be told by the playwright, the actors, and the director of the play that their behaviour is not tolerated.
Such people seemed to indicate that leaving the play without actions that should be taken against perpetrators of domestic violence could easily be misunderstood as tolerance of gender based violence.
Such concerns become legitimate especially when the audience’s laughter at horrible scenes of a woman physically abused and tormented by a husband.
Although reasons for laughter were given especially by women members of the audience, the domestic violence had turned to what is clearly tragic into a comic performance of a situation that is regarded as a sad but prevalent reality in the Zimbabwean society.
Others said if this sad reality was prevalent in Zimbabwe, there would be no reason therefore to “beat the dog while hiding the stick” but to confront it head on and condemn it.
That means the playwright in such circumstances should just prescribe the actions that should be taken to punish men who inflict physical violence on their wives.
In response to the assertion that the playwright must come up in the open and declare the way forward, a member of the audience argued that in “365” the victim is as responsible to what happens to her as the husband who inflicts the physical and verbal violence on her.
This view seemed to arise from the realisation that the victim ignores several options offered to her by her young sister.
This was as if to say that if a woman refuses to take the advice offered by her sister any solution that does not involve her in making a decision is no solution at all even though clearly stated.
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