With street protests banned and a once-vibrant press muzzled, dissident theatre productions are becoming an increasingly popular outlet to vent frustration towards Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
”Theatre is a mirror reflecting what is taking place in society and this is what I do with all my plays,” says Cont Mhlanga, whose satire The Good President has been playing before packed audiences. ”When I see an opposition leader beaten up and appearing in pictures in bandages, for me that is not good, and am I not allowed to protest?”
The play’s run was brought to an abrupt halt earlier this month when riot police stormed the stage at Bulawayo Theatre in the country’s second city.
Inspired by the assault on opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and several activists as they tried to stage a protest rally in March, the play ran foul of the authorities with its portrayal of the brutality of Mugabe’s riot police.
The production, which had earlier enjoyed a sell-out run in the capital, Harare, opens with riot police bashing Tsvangirai with truncheons for ”thinking you can overthrow a democratically elected leader”.
It ends with a disenchanted police officer resigning after learning from his grandmother that his own father was an opposition leader in the early 1980s and was killed by the same security forces of which he is a member.
Furious at the play’s temerity, police commanders deployed officers in riot gear to drive away theatre-goers, including Bulawayo’s outspoken Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube.
Police have demanded that Mhlanga hand over his script and tone it down, but this author of several political satires has refused to be cowed.
”Instead of addressing issues, government is targeting Cont Mhlanga,” he said by phone.
The state mouthpiece the Herald castigated the play as ”not theatre, but a propaganda piece” and ”advocating for anarchy”.
”The play is, therefore, the same campaign for regime change but this time using theatre and not the streets or pamphlets,” the newspaper said.
Mhlanga, who has launched a court appeal against the ban, says he is perplexed by the authorities’ stance.
”I am wondering why they are looking for extra motives behind the play,” said Mhlanga, who was picked up and then interrogated last year over his play Pregnant with Emotion, about a child who refuses to be born amid the crisis prevailing in the country.
Country in crisis
Zimbabwe, once considered as a post-colonial success story, has been gripped by political unrest and an economic crisis that has seen inflation soar to nearly 5 000% and unemployment hit the 80% mark.
Mugabe, the 83-year-old who has ruled the former British colony since independence in 1980, intends to stand for re-election next year.
The Good President joins a growing list of artistic productions blacklisted for their too-close-to-home portrayal of Zimbabwe’s political crisis and economic decline.
The play’s producer, Davies Guzha, was also behind another biting satire, Superpatriot and Morons, banned three years ago by government censors.
”We are witnessing a systematic attack on theatre as an alternative voice,” said Guzha. ”We are seeing a further shrinking of space for public debate.”
Audience figures attest to the popularity of protest theatre with other productions such as State of the Nation and All Systems Out of Order being staged before full houses at the popular Theatre-in-the-Park in the capital.
The artistic blacklist also extends to music, with songs such as Mamvemve (Tatters) and Nhamo Zvakare (Suffering Again) by one of the country’s most famous musicians, Thomas Mapfumo — who lives in self-imposed exile in the United States — banned from the airwaves.
Mamvemve is a metaphor of the country’s decay, and Nhamo Zvakare is the confession of a lying politician. The songs remain popular with music fans and are often played on commuter buses. — Sapa-AFP