Post date: May 08, 2012 1:13:58 PM
LUSAKA, ZAMBIA (REUTERS) - For Zambia's actors, it feels good to be back on stage. After a five-year hiatus, the Zambia Annual Theatre Festival recently brought together actors, playwrights and fans from across the country for an event that is hoped will spark a revival of the performing arts.
Zambia seeks a revival of theatre, hugely popular along the copper belts during colonial years due to support from the government, but is today underfunded and struggling to compete with cheap home entertainment.
'If men were women and women were men" was one of the plays staged at the festival held at the French Institute in the capital, Lusaka by Dilinalinedi Productions and written by one of the country's top playwrights, Tsungai Garise.
The story is about a man and a woman who switch roles in order to understand the challenges they each face.
"It was more like bringing out the issues that we do not put into consideration and then we take them for granted that being a man is easy, being a woman is easy without understanding each other," said Christin Musonda, a theatre fan.
"Being on stage somehow helps me to express certain things that I cannot express in everyday life", said Luse Kamoma, an actress.
"Theatre is important in that it reflects who we are, we are able to learn why things don't happen through a dramatized version of a situation you know, for instance with challenges we have in terms of gender based violence, child abuse, HIV/AIDS, we can reflect these ideas through theatre," said Garise.
At the moment theatre is concentrated in the capital because play houses built during the colonial period are in ruins. Before Zambia's independence, theatre was organized and financed by the colonial government. As a result, a stong theatre following could be traced along the railway tracks of the copper belt serving to entertain mining engineers and government officials.
Today, low ticket sales, lack of funding and support from the government have seen a near collapse of several of Zambia's play houses.
Garise says without theatre various issues facing society become harder to address.
"Theatre is important in that it reflects who we are, we are able to learn why things don't happen through a dramatized version of a situation you know, for instance with challenges we have in terms of gender based violence, child abuse, HIV/AIDS, we can reflect these ideas through theatre," he said.
Zambia's National Arts Council is trying to turn things around and put performing arts back on the agenda.
Victor Makashi works with the council and says with proper management theatre can go beyond entertainment and become an important source of employment.
"National Arts Council was set up basically to advise government on the developmental needs in theatre houses, so for instance, we looked at all the theatre houses most of which were constructed before independence along the line of rail. If you go to the mining areas, all the towns there have got theatre houses but then over the years these institutions have been neglected and therefore the government has got a program to rehabilitate all these theatre houses. In fact part of the drop in the numbers is because of the infrastructure having gone down," said Makashi.
But even when plays do get staged, groups have to compete with alternative sources of entertainment.
Many Zambians find theatre expensive and opt to watch television and DVD recorded movies - often pirated and sold openly in markets and shops.
"DVDs are cheaper whilst plays are very expensive, for example for me to get to a play house, I have to book a cab, usually these plays are done in the night, so on my part its cheaper to just stay home and watch on DVDs," said Fiona Shichinda, a Lusaka Resident.