By Emmanuel Luciano
Du Chisiza Jnr, an icon of stage drama performed in English, graduated from the Association for the Teaching of English (Atem) competitions of old. So did most of his lieutenants who carried Du’s legacy after he had made his last bow on the stage of life.
The founders of non institutional drama done in vernacular like Frank Kunje of Umodzi Drama Group and the late Charles Severe of Kwathu Drama, recruited most of their members from church choirs that enacted the death of Jesus Christ during Easter or His birth during Christmas.
But decades after most of the pacesetters of stage theatre had exeunt the stage, local dramatists, as experts say, have always modelled their plays on the works of those founders. This, they say, has led to stagnation of stage drama.
Save for the few drama groups like Nanzikambe that have explored other dramatic forms like farce (This is light dramatic work in which highly improbable plot situations, exaggerated characters are used), most dramatists, as experts will have it, have been hit by stage-fright so much that they are conducting the dress-rehearsals of their better plays at the backstage and do not have the courage to open the curtain to the audience.
Head of Performing Arts Department and lecturer in drama, Joe Chimwenje, says there isn’t much that is happening in stage drama.
Chimwenje attributes to the stagnation of stage drama to various factors like lack of proper training and exposure.
“The standard of stage drama is not encouraging because artists have not been exposed to what is good theatre. People say there is a reservoir of talent. But that is raw talent, which has had no opportunity of being nurtured. Such talent can’t take drama to the next level.
The lecturer says if artists were exposed, people would see the differences in imagination and creativity that constitutes excellent theatre.
Chimwenje does not spare theatre-goers for the increase in the run-of-the mill plays.
“Theatre-goers have been fed on a menu of sub-standard theatre, that’s why they come up with comments that say ‘the play was good because it was realistic’. But, somehow, they can’t be blamed for praising ignorantly a play,” he says.
The print media, too, has met the wrath of Chimwenje: “I have no kind words for theatre reviews that merely regurgitate the story of the play but tell us nothing about the acting, the thematic expression, for instance. Theatre would not be helped by reviews that say the play was a blockbuster.
“If you went into the archives and got articles of Jika Nkolokosa or late Isaac Chirwa, you could see the kind of reviews that could rest the artistic production of performance on that basis of analysis,” he says.
The absence of strong scripts, for groups that do not use improvisation, has been catalogued as another reason why stage theatre has gone into the doldrums.
Rowland Mvundula’s scripts were a prototype of strong scripts that flooded stage theatre at its zenith according to Chimwenje who only cited Smith Likongwe as the best script writer presently.
Even Smith Likongwe himself acknowledges that artists’ orientation into drama has shaped their understanding of it.
“When a person grows up and watches drama, they know drama as wearing rags and cracking jokes as a result the actors tend to overact because they want people to laugh,” says Likongwe.
Likongwe says they are few theatre groups that know what they are doing like Nanzikambe hence they are able to bring other elements of drama into their plays.
Nanzikambe’s director Melissa Eveleigh says one of the challenges stage dramatists face in the country is lack of capacity to invest in developing talent.
“The problem is time and space to develop talent. To train somebody how to use the voice and body you need to have years of training just as you don’t expect someone to start playing the piano when they had not fully trained how to play it,” she says.
Eveleigh also says people have looked at theatre negatively: “People don’t respect the role theatre plays as a commentary about life. It doesn’t get the same respect it gets in Zimbabwe or South Africa,” she says
Founder of Umodzi Drama Group Frank Kunje blames the rigidity of the drama groups to how they espoused stage drama: “We were doing things because that’s the only way we were taught and oriented. But we should be exploring and including other elements of drama,” Kunje says.
The excuse groups often give for dwindling standards of stage theatre is lack of resources which, Chimwenje says, is no excuse at all.
“Financial and material resources on their own cannot not make good theatre. We need the artists to be imaginative and creative, and the rest would come on their own.
“People don’t know that theatre is very challenging, therefore, you have to continuously invest your time, discipline, and energy other than getting satisfied with one or two productions,” he says.
The drama lecturer says he is ware that people expect the University to play a very big role in improving stage drama.
“People ask what are you doing yourself? But if people want to learn, they should be willing to contact us because there is a lot that we are doing at Chancellor College but they are not exposed to people.
“If I teach from first to fourth year, I am not able to form a theatre company to act as a role model because my resources and time are constrained. But we can always assist when asked,” concludes Chimwenje.
The stage curtains may be fast drawing and the rehearsals at the backstage might be prolonged. But Chimwenje is hopeful that the stage-fright enveloping the cast would force them to be stage-struck so as to come up with imaginative plays soon.
Du Chisiza Jnr, an icon of stage drama performed in English, graduated from the Association for the Teaching of English (Atem) competitions of old. So did most of his lieutenants who carried Du’s legacy after he had made his last bow on the stage of life.
The founders of non institutional drama done in vernacular like Frank Kunje of Umodzi Drama Group and the late Charles Severe of Kwathu Drama, recruited most of their members from church choirs that enacted the death of Jesus Christ during Easter or His birth during Christmas.
But decades after most of the pacesetters of stage theatre had exeunt the stage, local dramatists, as experts say, have always modelled their plays on the works of those founders. This, they say, has led to stagnation of stage drama.
Save for the few drama groups like Nanzikambe that have explored other dramatic forms like farce (This is light dramatic work in which highly improbable plot situations, exaggerated characters are used), most dramatists, as experts will have it, have been hit by stage-fright so much that they are conducting the dress-rehearsals of their better plays at the backstage and do not have the courage to open the curtain to the audience.
Head of Performing Arts Department and lecturer in drama, Joe Chimwenje, says there isn’t much that is happening in stage drama.
Chimwenje attributes to the stagnation of stage drama to various factors like lack of proper training and exposure.
“The standard of stage drama is not encouraging because artists have not been exposed to what is good theatre. People say there is a reservoir of talent. But that is raw talent, which has had no opportunity of being nurtured. Such talent can’t take drama to the next level.
The lecturer says if artists were exposed, people would see the differences in imagination and creativity that constitutes excellent theatre.
Chimwenje does not spare theatre-goers for the increase in the run-of-the mill plays.
“Theatre-goers have been fed on a menu of sub-standard theatre, that’s why they come up with comments that say ‘the play was good because it was realistic’. But, somehow, they can’t be blamed for praising ignorantly a play,” he says.
The print media, too, has met the wrath of Chimwenje: “I have no kind words for theatre reviews that merely regurgitate the story of the play but tell us nothing about the acting, the thematic expression, for instance. Theatre would not be helped by reviews that say the play was a blockbuster.
“If you went into the archives and got articles of Jika Nkolokosa or late Isaac Chirwa, you could see the kind of reviews that could rest the artistic production of performance on that basis of analysis,” he says.
The absence of strong scripts, for groups that do not use improvisation, has been catalogued as another reason why stage theatre has gone into the doldrums.
Rowland Mvundula’s scripts were a prototype of strong scripts that flooded stage theatre at its zenith according to Chimwenje who only cited Smith Likongwe as the best script writer presently.
Even Smith Likongwe himself acknowledges that artists’ orientation into drama has shaped their understanding of it.
“When a person grows up and watches drama, they know drama as wearing rags and cracking jokes as a result the actors tend to overact because they want people to laugh,” says Likongwe.
Likongwe says they are few theatre groups that know what they are doing like Nanzikambe hence they are able to bring other elements of drama into their plays.
Nanzikambe’s director Melissa Eveleigh says one of the challenges stage dramatists face in the country is lack of capacity to invest in developing talent.
“The problem is time and space to develop talent. To train somebody how to use the voice and body you need to have years of training just as you don’t expect someone to start playing the piano when they had not fully trained how to play it,” she says.
Eveleigh also says people have looked at theatre negatively: “People don’t respect the role theatre plays as a commentary about life. It doesn’t get the same respect it gets in Zimbabwe or South Africa,” she says
Founder of Umodzi Drama Group Frank Kunje blames the rigidity of the drama groups to how they espoused stage drama: “We were doing things because that’s the only way we were taught and oriented. But we should be exploring and including other elements of drama,” Kunje says.
The excuse groups often give for dwindling standards of stage theatre is lack of resources which, Chimwenje says, is no excuse at all.
“Financial and material resources on their own cannot not make good theatre. We need the artists to be imaginative and creative, and the rest would come on their own.
“People don’t know that theatre is very challenging, therefore, you have to continuously invest your time, discipline, and energy other than getting satisfied with one or two productions,” he says.
The drama lecturer says he is ware that people expect the University to play a very big role in improving stage drama.
“People ask what are you doing yourself? But if people want to learn, they should be willing to contact us because there is a lot that we are doing at Chancellor College but they are not exposed to people.
“If I teach from first to fourth year, I am not able to form a theatre company to act as a role model because my resources and time are constrained. But we can always assist when asked,” concludes Chimwenje.
The stage curtains may be fast drawing and the rehearsals at the backstage might be prolonged. But Chimwenje is hopeful that the stage-fright enveloping the cast would force them to be stage-struck so as to come up with imaginative plays soon.
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