“The nation of Rubbishville was in the dark. They had rats and flies,” goes the opening verse of the Rat Song. It paints a grim picture of a town that in 2027 is overrun by litter and disease.
Rubbishville is a place where people “don’t think or care”. Everyone is sick, and terrified of the rats.
The Rat Song opens the performance of Trash Truck, which invites the audience to travel the road from Rubbishville to Lovelyville and, in the process, make it a place where the rats don’t want to live. The audience helps the actors turn the litter-strewn stage into a pristine and healthy scene — and the rats leave to the mournful sounds of a revised Rat Song.
Trash Truck is an energetic environmental educational programme that uses the performing arts to share the message that cleaning up litter can be fun. And fun it is. Performances take place on the back of a flat-bed truck and the songs are set to funky contemporary tunes. This visual journey of song, dance, music and humour inspires schools and their learners to take control of the rubbish problem and encourages them to find waste management solutions. “It’s magical,” says Trash Truck actor Simon Khumalo. “The kids see the power of drama relate to things in their everyday lives.”
This year Trash Truck has visited schools in the Ekurhuleni Metro area on the East Rand and in lower Mpumalanga. The performances also take place in community centres. The company chose the theme of waste management and the idea of targeting schools after discovering that, although schools are often kept clean, the areas around them are often dumping sites. The aim is to extend pride in the environment beyond the school borders and into the community.
Learners are called up on to the truck’s “stage” and work together with the performers to clean up Rubbishville in this interactive learning experience that was developed by the Sibikwa Community Theatre. The company is an NGO that has been using drama to highlight social issues since 1998.
The programme for Trash Truck 2002 grew from a pilot project that received enthusiastic recommendations. “The play is based on extensive research,” explain the directors, Smal Ndaba and Phyllis Klotz. “We worked with both environmental NGOs and the government.” The actors have also benefited from this collaborative process: “Through the research process and the writing of the play, I have grown as a person and as a performer,” says actor Tshepo Sefatsane.
By providing a learning experience that relates directly to real life and encouraging learners to get involved with cleaning their environment, the production is aligned to the principles of outcomes-based education. “It enjoys the wholehearted support of the Gauteng department of agriculture, conservation, environment and land affairs, the national Department of Education and various local government departments,” say the directors.
The multilingual production mixes English, Afrikaans, isiZulu and seSotho to convey the message of “reduce, re-use and recycle”. Trash Truck does not follow a static script, but rather the actors tailor each performance to the audience. For example, if the learners at a school are largely isiZulu-speaking, the actors will use more of that language. Through an introductory questioning session, the actors gauge which areas of waste management are least understood by their audience and then focus on these topics.
But Trash Truck does not simply entertain, inform and depart. The performance aims to provide a means of improving the health and environment of the entire community. After each performance the audience is invited to sign a pledge for a cleaner school. A lesson plan is also provided. This gets grade three to nine learners involved in scripting and singing their own songs on rubbish-related matters and using peer-assessment techniques to judge their efforts.
In addition, the school is required to select four out of five follow-up workshops. These are aimed at assisting the school in establishing an eco-club and a school environment and waste management policy. After each performance teachers are asked to evaluate the impact of Trash Truck on the school. The response of Jerry Matlala, of Isaac Makau Primary, is typical: “[It] successfully helped communicate the message of environmental awareness to the whole school.”
Trash Truck is a work in constant progress. After the first few performances it was decided that learners should be included in the finale. So now it’s actor Rocky Ndlovo’s job to teach the crowd the words to the final song of the show. Once everyone knows the lyrics, the play ends with an enthusiastic finale of “Bend down when you see the litter on the ground — pick it up! Reduce, re-use, recycle!”