community theatre

Community theatre: Context and IdeologySamuel Ravengai

What is a community? George Marcus sees community as a group of people residing in the same cultural space with a ‘sense of shared values, shared identity, and thus shared culture’ (1992:315). Homogeneity is a key element of communal identities. Communal identities are particularly well developed in rural areas. In the city a community becomes an entity with shared economic and social conditions that bind people together particularly in a space where the gap between the rich and the poor is wide such as South Africa which is second after Brazil. Communal feelings do persist in the townships. Even though community can be defined the term community theatre/popular theatre is an elusive or slippery term. There are contrasting views about what it is as evidenced by a plethora of names/terms used amongst practitioners and scholars – all describing the same phenomenon: development theatre, theatre for development, popular theatre, community theatre, participatory theatre, theatre for the people, people’s theatre (Frank 1995: 10), majority theatre, committed theatre, contestatory theatre (Solberg 1999: 1), democratic theatre (Udenta 1993), people’s theatre, revolutionary theatre, (Chifunyise, Kavangh, wa Mirii 1993).

Studies in Community theatre have developed in three main branches Theatre that operates within tough commercial framework of urban

economies Social development – often – though not always concerned with rural

projects Political/revolutionary potential of community theatre

Obviously these are not separate independent entities but ‘centres of dynamism’ always fluctuating, shifting and overlapping categories. A group may operate commercially and also do plays on social development and political consciousness. The kind of theatre for development proposed by Mlama links the second and third categories

Popular theatre may be seen as an effort to develop a type of theatre that is relevant to people’s life and struggle as opposed to the theatre of entertainment and abstraction from reality of the dominant classes. Here theatre is used not only to develop theatre as a form of cultural expression, but also, and more significantly, as a tool for improving life in its totality. Theatre becomes a process through which man studies and forms an opinion about it and acquires the frame of mind necessary for him to take action to improve upon it. As such, theatre is economic, social, political – indeed life itself (Mlama 1991: 16)

Community theatre here serves as an ideological tool in both a social and political struggle. The boundaries between what is social and what is political blur. The difference is of content, but the ideology remains the same. Frank divides the second branch of community theatre (social development) into two subcategories

1. Project – oriented plays: performed to implement a concrete improvement in the life of the community eg building a house (RDP). The minister of human settlements in SA contracted a group to raise consciousness in the area of urban housing.

2. Theatre for consciousness raising/Campaign theatre.

1 © Samuel Ravengai.2010. Community Theatre Lecture Notes

What is ideology? Is there any theatre that is not ideologically driven? An ideology defined broadly is ‘more or less coherent set of values and beliefs used to describe and maintain images of the world. Among the most important functions of an ideology is control over image management… Ideologies shape subjective realities primarily through influencing the selection of information and the weight given to single facts and processes (i.e. the degree of correctness and representativeness ascribed to the information (Shlapentokh and Shlapentokh, 1993: 11-12). According to Andrew Horn (1997) all art – be it ‘high’ art of the intelligentsia, the popular commercial art produced for mass consumption, the critical art of both the progressive and the reactionary , or the folk art of traditional cultures – serves the ends of some sector of society. Which side does community theatre serve? Ngugi wa Thiong’o argues that any art cannot escape from the class power structures that shape our lives. The artist has a choice whether to be on the side of the people or on the side of social forces and classes that oppress the people. There is no position of neutrality. Ngugi wa Thiong’o asserts that ‘every writer is a writer in politics. The only question is what and whose politics’ (cited in Udenta 1993: iv). This can be taken to mean that every artiste takes an ideological position. Ideologically, on which side is community theatre?

It takes the position and worldview of the working class, peasants and the lumpen proletariat. It sees the world these people see it. It looks at their failures, triumphs, setbacks and achievements. It takes working class ideology.

Though not substitute for action community theatre is a carrier of social values, a galvaniser of the people, a raiser of their consciousness.

It depicts positive heroes bringing out their humanistic elements, their courage and disappointments.

Democratisation of language – usually in an African language. It applies forms which people know and with which they are familiar.

It builds on cultural traditions and forms of expression through which the given society is accustomed to communicate

It utilises local communal and indigenous dramaturgical resources like the rejection of the proscenium theatre in favour of open arena performances, a combination of dance-drama music.

It utilises the audience as participants. It fuses performance and audience organically. The answers to questions arsing from the play originate in the same forum that pose the questions. With the help of discussions one arrives at the topics that the group would like to consider.

Community theatre and Western (Aristotelian) TheatreAmong scholars on African theatre, the Aristotelian poetics is one of the most fiercely attacked western aspects and considered to be the root of problems in African performance (Ravengai, 2001; van Erven, 1991; Etherton, 1982). Aristotelian theatre is viewed as an artistic mirror of a capitalist consumer culture that upholds the political status quo. Diana Belshaw (2008) has argued that scripted plays of the


Aristotelian tradition disempowered performers from other ethnic backgrounds who don’t necessarily create their theatre using its principles. She argues that the devising method allows each person to bring in something from their life and this is a creative aspect that is at the heart of community theatre.

Western (Aristotelian) Theatre Community TheatreProduct ProcessScript improvisation (devising)Written oralAudience watches audience participates/experiential Dialogue potpourri: dance, mime, song, dramaUsually a European language usually an African languageElitist popularCatharsis empowering/liberating

Models or Approaches to Community Theatre1. The Travelling theatre approach

In Africa, travelling theatres were initiated by Universities with the aim of breaking away from the urban based theatre inherited from colonialism. This is literally taking theatre to the people and has been tried in Ibadan, Makerere, Nairobi, Malawi, and Zambia. The travelling theatre group might or might not organise workshops for and hold discussions with its audiences; the important point is that the audiences – who are the community – are not involved and do not participate in the playmaking process. However, with some luck, the travelling theatre group might just inspire theatre groups in the communities visited. The University of Nairobi Travelling Theatre, for example, did influence the development of theatre in the country and strengthened the development towards theatre at the Kamiriithu Community Educational and Culture Centre.

2. The outside Team Workers ApproachThe second approach is when a group of people goes to a community, stays with that community, listens to and observes the people’s main problems and concerns, exchanges opinions with the people and then goes back to base to make a play on what were seen as the major themes arsing out of the discussions and observations. The resulting play is then brought back to the community – written and acted by people from outside. The usual discussion after the play might be tacked in.

3. The Participatory ApproachAlternatively, the same group as above comes to the community and listens to the community’s problems, discusses and observes. However, instead of moving away from the community to evolve and make a play around the issues arising out of the community, the group stays with the community with whom it makes the plays. A much higher level of community participation is when the community itself takes the initiative to create theatre and invites people outside their community as was the case in Kenya with the Kamirithu Community Education and Cultural Centre (KCECC). Evaluation of the three approaches


The first two approaches have been tried in Botswana, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Swaziland, Malawi and Tanzania and earlier in Kenya and Uganda. The major weakness of these approaches is their failure to involve people and to tap the people’s creative potentialities, cultural strengths and to develop their awareness of their environment. And though the second approach purports to reflect problems seen in the community, the representation of these problems is nonetheless as they are seen by the theatre workers – not as the people see them. The process of playmaking does not involve the community’s participation, therefore the community is not afforded the chance to ask itself why things have happened the way they have - and yet again why? The community has little opportunity to develop its own artistic and cultural skills. The above two approaches’ limitations are particularly glaring when theatre is used by extension workers to propagate specific and localised narrow ‘developmentalist’ messages to do with health, literacy, agriculture, etc. the failure to involve the community in intensive discussion and in the evolving of the play as well as denying the community the chance to develop its artistic and cultural talents also leads to the following:

1. Top to bottom solution. The community is forced to accept uncritically and without thought whatever development solutions are offered by extension workers. Thus their initiative is emasculated. The people are still the passive and dependent recipients of ‘aid’ from outside denied the chance to become the active participants in, the subjects and not objects, the makers and not consumers of, their own history and destiny.

2. Solutions do not challenge the status quo. The so called ‘pragmatic’ and technical solutions fail to answer such vital questions as: does the community have material means to afford a consultation with a medical doctor? If not why? And why again? Looked at this way, it obvious that even seemingly simple problems cannot be seen in isolation from the historical, national and international socio-economic context.

3. This kind of theatre does not raise the political understanding of the people. And, appearances notwithstanding, it does not help in the transformation of people’s lives.

4. Because of its prescriptive nature and failure to involve the people, it is doubtful that the people will be inspired enough to organise their own theatre groups and develop a dynamic theatre tradition. It is usually a one time affair.

The third approach (the participatory approach) has been found to the more meaningful approach and the one that is able to fully mobilise a community as the KCECC in Kenya testifies. This is because:

1. Involvement of the people empowers them as they take part in finding solutions to their own problems. It frustrates the dependency syndrome (depending on outsiders). Normally when these outsiders leave the community, the process fails because of the community’s inculcated sense of dependency.

2. The involvement of the community in the theatre process in all its stages inevitably leads to the community analysing the problems that it confronts, how these manifest themselves and what effect they have on the


community. Thus this method is more educational for the people. Before an issue can be enacted the people dig deeper in the historical causes of their material condition. This helps them to sharpen their critical perspective and to become more constructively responsive to national issues. Thus the process of playmaking becomes an educational and politicising experience.

3. The people become transformed by this experience. The playmaking process taps and develops their artistic skills and talents, and makes them discover other latent potentialities. And because the theatre experience demands that their feelings and thoughts be involved, they become more sensitised to their history and to the current national issues.

4. The discipline and organisational structure which necessarily arise out of this experience teaches people organisational skills and encourages them to take initiatives and control these structures. This also helps to dynamise their collective life.

5. This process, once it takes hold in the community, complements the formal education of the community.

The Participatory Approach Model – Kamiriithu Community Education and Cultural Centre: Monitoring and EvaluationThe two terms monitoring and evaluation are not synonymous. Monitoring is normally done during the progress of the project by way of systematic collection and analysis of information with the aim of improving efficiency and effectiveness of a project. This may not be possible for a project that was done in 1977. Evaluation is the comparison of actual project impacts against the agreed strategic plan, which is done either during the life of the project after the project as some kind of an autopsy. What did the kamiriithu project intend to achieve? What did it accomplish and how did it accomplish it? However, both monitoring and evaluation are geared towards learning from what one is doing and how s/he is doing it by focussing on three issues:

1. Efficiency: is the input (time, money, staff, equipment etc) into the work corresponding with output?

2. Effectiveness: a measure of the extent to which a project achieves its objectives

3. Impact: whether or not the process of creating theatre and the theatrical event made a difference to the problem situation that the animateurs were trying to address.

What can be said about the above issues? After opening on the 2nd of October 1977 to a paying audience the project was an immediate success in terms of audience attendance. Audiences did not only come from Kamiriithu, but from surrounding areas. The press has been talking about the project ever since and many books and dissertations have been written about the project. The banning of the project by the Kenyan government created a backlash which gave life to the project after its demise. The government publicised it by banning it. Many projects which were influenced by Kamiriithu followed – Mother Sing for Me (1982), Kamiriithu musical drama (1982) which was banned including all theatre activities in the entire area of Limuru, Vihiga Cultural Festival in western Kenya. As a response to what the people wanted President Daniel Arap Moi visited the area in 1984 and donated money to


build a polytechnic college to teach the villagers vocational skills to deal with poverty.

The Kamiriithu village is located in Limuru – 30 or so kilometres from Nairobi. It was established in the 1950s by the British colonial administration as a ‘keep/concentration camp’ to cut off links between the people and the Mau Mau guerrillas. After independence in 1963 the village remained intact this time serving as a dormitory village for cheap labour for various companies, factories, plantations and farms in Limuru. Kamiriithu village had a population of about 10 000 people. It had a dilapidated Youth Centre (in an open area covering four acres) which was used as an adult education centre and was run by peasants, workers, a school teacher and a businessman. The community realised it needed to resuscitate its creative vibrancy and to learn more about its history and how it could overcome forces against it. Ngugi wa Thiong’o was approached in 1976 by a Kamiriithu woman who asked him to be involved in the development of the village through creative participation of the village. It wasn’t the facilitators/development agents/animateurs imposing themselves on the community. The following agreed to join the project as animateurs:

Ngugi wa Thiong’o – lecturer and chairman of the Literature Department. He worked as a researcher and writer of the resultant play Ngaahika Ndeenda (I will Marry when I Want)

Dr Kimani Gecau – lecturer in the Literature Department and Director of Ngaahika Ndeenda

Kabiru Kinyanjui (co-researcher) Ngugi wa Mirii – development worker, co-ordinating director of the

Kamiriithu project and co-writer of the play Ngaahika Ndeenda

The concept of participation has been observed over the years and has been found to be at the centre of genuine development. If people are left out from the starting stages of development programmes, they are less likely to appreciate the initiative. In development discourse participation involves allowing people the freedom to chart their destiny by harnessing their cultural, economic and political resources in order to achieve the goals of community development. Community participation checks authoritarian and paternalistic ideas advanced by elite members of the society. Participation is analogous to Plato’s concept of participation in the Republic where every citizen gathers at the assembly to debate issues of mutual concern. The whole process of researching, auditioning, rehearsing, and constructing the open air theatre involved the participation of the community and it took nine months – from January to September 1977. Some projects which profess participation of the community don’t involve the community for such a long period. How did the animateurs gather their data? Was there any systematic process that was followed which involved the community?

During the rehearsal phase the community continued participating in shaping the play. According to Ngugi wa Thiong’o (1981) during rehearsals the peasants taught each other songs, dances and ceremony because they knew all about it. They were particular about the accuracy of detail. They also commented on the suitability of


language for certain categories of characters. Ngugi wa Thiong’o reports that comments of this nature were common: ‘An old man cannot speak like that …If you want him to have dignity, he has to use this or that kind of proverb’ (1981: 54). Participants were also particular about the representation of their history. They challenged others and the director on any incorrect positioning and representation of the facts. They checked what was being played with their own experiences during the unfolding of that history in reality. Working class participants were keen that the details of their exploitation in multinational factories be exposed. During the process of creating theatre those who worked at Bata Shoe factory worked out and explained to others that they created wealth to cover their salaries in one day, and would work for the rest of the month for greedy owners and shareholders who never used their hands to create that wealth. The creative process thus became a learning process for everybody. Village residents participated by coming to watch rehearsal and commenting on what was happening. Some of them got recruited into the acting team after they had intervened to show how such a character should have been portrayed. The rest of the audience applauded those who got new roles and encouraged them to continue.

Participation is now a ‘catchy word’ interpreted and applied variously to serve different interests. Sometimes participation is considered to have taken place when a community attends a large community meeting where they are addressed by a team of agents regarding some planned activity in their village. Development experts and local elites do the thinking part involving designing the programme, writing the play and monitoring progress. In the Third World this type of participation has failed as it lacks a genuine process involving the community in becoming aware of its own situation, socio-economic realities, real problems and their causes. This is top to bottom approach where development projects are forced on the people.

The other approach to participation is the conscientisation approach. Participants are transformed and become sentient of who they are and leads them to self-actualisation. Part of this realisation involves working with other people in an organised way so as to achieve power through popular participation. But this begs the question: Who is doing the awareness creation? One criticism against this approach to participation is the danger of exposing the community’s susceptibility to exploitative schemes by development agents. Humanism rejects the conscientisation approach for the reason that development agents/facilitators/animateurs may foist in the community their biases and values. The process which they have brought simply replaces one system with another. Left in the wrong hands, conscientisation may be a vehicle for disseminating propaganda. Humanists argue that when people are not involved in constructing their life-world then they become dehumanised and alienated. Humanists probably put too much emphasis on the ability of individuals to create a meaningful world that can bring about change. Humanists also ignore the fact that social structures and institutions can limit human behaviour and choice.Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)This refers to a practical set of approaches that are utilised to mobilise and engage communities. The main objective of PRA is to prioritise the needs and through a plan of action tackle the needs as in the case of Kamiriithu. As a tool PRA builds on the


principle that the community is a reservoir of local knowledge, experience, and skills which can be harnessed for positive change. People are agents of change and not vessels to receive change. PRA utilises local graphic representations created by the community, hence legitimises local knowledge and promotes empowerment. Some of the basic principles of PRA include:

Listening not lecturing, probing instead of passing on to the next topic, being unimposing instead of important and seeking out the down-trodden and learning their concerns. In the Kamiriithu project the following issues were picked out by the animateurs as themes that needed to be tackled in the play: 1. The proletarianisation of the peasantry. This is epitomised by the

Kiguunda family which is deprived of its small piece of land by a multinational company and forced to work in the company for a living.

2. The land question for which the Mau Mau went to war is not addressed by the new government. The new government acts as a comprador for foreign multinational companies. The revolution has been hijacked.

3. The deplorable working conditions of workers in multinational companies and plantations.

4. The celebration of the revolutionary history and the continuity of that struggle.

Consciously exploring and cross checking; not following a blueprint programme, but being adaptable in a learning process

Reversal of learning: learning from with and by the people, eliciting and using their criteria and categories and findings; understanding and appreciating rural people’s knowledge. The animateurs in the Kamiriithu project were unimposing, but also learnt from the process as recounted by Ngugi wa Thiong’o:

The process, particularly for Ngugi wa Mirii, Kimani Gecau, and myself was one of continuous learning. Learning of our history. Learning of what goes on in the farms and plantations. Learning our language, for the peasants were essentially the guardians of the language through years of use (1981: 45).

Seeking diversity: meaning looking for and learning from exceptions, oddities, and outliers.

Local people facilitate investigation, analysis, presentation and learning by the people, thus they generate and own the outcomes.

Self critical awareness – animateurs critically examine their own behaviour such as embracing error and correcting dominant behaviour.

Sharing information.The effectiveness of PRA is dependent on how skilled a facilitator is and how well s/he allows the community to participate without rushing them through the appraisal or dominating the sessions.

Many a time participation is now being commercialised with development agents as ‘merchants of participation’. In this regard participatory development has become an end rather than a means through which change can be realised in the rural communities. Animateurs turn participatory development as a means to economic


gain. For this reason they care less about PRA procedures and outcomes. At the KCECC the animateurs used the TfD method which also applies PRA principles. The function of TfD goes beyond the theatrical event to raise issues, find solutions and spark-off collective action. Since acting is a skill that is seldom readily available in the communities or even among development workers, TfD is often led by a team of theatre experts who work with different development workers to create theatrical performances. Even though wa Thiong’o and wa Mirii are listed as the nominal authors of I will Marry When I want (Ngaahika Ndeenda), the play was generated through genuine participationIssues to considerWhat is the appropriate language? The play was in GikuyuHow immediate is the environment in terms of venue; is the problem being addressed etc?Participation – who is doing what? This is a key question for the project coordinator himselfCulture – here attention is drawn to the latent expressions of culture, which are never apparent in casual impatient contact with a community. The adaptation of appropriate indigenous art form can be included here. In Ngaahika Ndeenda the major vehicles of communication were song, mime and dance. In Kenya and Africa in general song and dance are central to nearly all rituals celebrating rain, birth, circumcision, marriage, funerals and ordinary ceremonies. They were not used as decorations in the I Will Marry When I want, but as the integral part of conversations. They were used as part of the structure and movement of the actors. Song, dance and mime were used to recreate the past and the future. They were also used as part of the continuation of dialogue and action.Time – what is the appropriate time for working with the community? For the Kamiriithu project the readings, discussions and rehearsals were timed to keep in rhythm with the lives of the people. Sometimes the community met on Saturday and Sunday afternoon in order not to interfere with church attendance in the mornings.


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