Theatre for Public Health in Swaziland: Educational Plays Bring In Audiences

James Hall

MBABANE, Aug 20 2002 (IPS) – Like many actors in impoverished countries in Southern Africa, where few people are able to buy theatre tickets to support the performing arts, jobs and theatrical experience are coming from commissions from Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and government ministries for plays with educational and social messages.

We are supported by plays with educational themes, but just as importantly this is a way to bring theatre to rural communities who have never seen a production, says Simneke Magagula, director of a Swaziland theatrical troupe Sibahle Nje.

Loosely translated as ‘We are truly beautiful,’ Sibahle Nje is a small troupe of five actors and five actresses who compensate with high energy and extraordinary mimicking abilities for a lack of sets and props, and often a lack of a stage.

Another Swazi troupe of aspiring and accomplished thespians is the People ‘s Education Theatre (PET), whose director, Andreas Mavuso, keeps his group performing through commissions from health and social welfare organisations.

A typical play by Sibahle Nje is held under the trees in open air, with the only incidents that could postpone a performance being rain or hailstorms. ‘We have performed under all sorts of conditions, even at night with a campfire for our stage lighting,’ says Cynthia Dube, an actress in her twenties who specialised in stooped and aged granny characters four decades older than her.

Currently, the group is performing at various venues around the country two productions, a story about HIV transmission and one about child abuse. Both themes are serious, and they pick up where traditional educational booklets and lectures have largely failed among audiences by providing information that will be remembered and hopefully used.

The HIV play is a rollicking comedy about an unfaithful husband and his inebriated friend, both whom are put in their place by strong-willed women. Even grade school children respond to the antics, and come away with an understanding about how a sexually transmitted disease is passed on when adults are irresponsible.

‘Mr. Snake’, a new play that debuted at the weekend before an audience of social welfare workers, was commissioned by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The script is based on a story by UNICEF s representative in Swaziland, Alan Brody.

Evolving from discussions with church groups and child welfare workers, the story was first published in booklet form to instruct children about child abuse. But a theatrical version was sought to bring the message to more people, many of whom are illiterate adults or children who because of poverty are erratic school goers and are not proficient readers. But the children are potential victims of child abuse, a problem that is growing in the country.

The Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA) reports that cases of child abuse and incest its counsellors have handled this year have increased by 50 percent from a year ago.

‘Child abuse is such a sensitive subject, that we sought to use animals to tell the tale, and we found this makes a controversial subject like sex acceptable to conservative adults as well,’ says Brody.

Actor Skumbusa Matsebula, who plays the lead role of a snake that seduces the nubile daughter of the Rock Rabbit family, says, ‘The allegorical approach also allows us actors to create broad comic roles. This is fun for us, and the audiences respond well, especially the children, who are the primary audience for the message.’

Smooth talking Mr. Snake, who slithers in from the city, gets Mr. Rock Rabbit drunk, and convinces the daughter to go away with him. He is thwarted when the girl shows common sense, and resists his advances at the play’s climax.

The group’s AIDS message play is performed for such health-oriented NGOs as the Alliance of Mayors’ Initiative for Community Action Against AIDS on the Local Level (AMICAALL), which has brought the actors to audiences in all of Swaziland’s large and mid-size towns. A new government organisation, the National Emergency Response Committee on HIV and AIDS (NERCA) is another of the group’s patrons. So are the health and social welfare ministry and the ministry of education, which calls upon Sibahle Nje to inform while entertaining audiences of schoolchildren who have never seen professional actors.

The People’s Educational Theatre is employed by ‘Women in Law for Southern Africa’s Swaziland branch to perform a topical comedy on the subject of women’s rights.

‘The subject of gender rights is controversial in a traditional paternalistic society,’ says PET’s artistic director Mavusa. ‘People respond well to the comedy, and this makes the message more palatable. The audience members see themselves in the characters on stage.’

Often, there is no stage, and only on the rarest of occasions are performers given microphones to pick up their voices. The actors have a challenge to be heard when performing in wind-swept open areas. They manage through the old-fashioned method: by projecting their voices.

‘It is like we’re actors at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre 500 years ago, but instead of shouting over the drunken groundlings in the cheap seats we have to compete with the chattering school kids,’ says Sibahle Nje actor Skumbusa Matsebula.

Vusi Gamedze, who plays wily Mr. Goat in the child abuse play, is a natural actor whose background is typical of the thespians in the country. ‘I’ve only been acting with the group for a year. I was making refrigerators at a factory for five years until it closed down. I tried out at an audition, and it came easily to me.’

Alie Yende, who at 22 is Sibahle Nje’s youngest actor, says, ‘There is no theatre in Swaziland because people are too poor buy enough tickets to keep a production company going on a regular basis. But plays are good ways to communicate messages to people. That is why we use ourselves to educate the people.’

All plays from Aristophanes onward are educational in what they say about human nature. But African NGOs are using plays to emphasise specific messages, and in so doing are exposing thousands of people to live theatre and giving talented actors a way to practice their craft.

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