|
|
UBE 423: University of Botswana Student Drama |
UBE423 is the informal name given to a drama group, which performs a workshopped play each year. Its name comes from a course number (English 423), which is the number of a course entitled The Theory and Practice of Drama. This course, as the title suggests, examines theoretical and practical aspects of drama. The practical component of the course consists of a general introduction to skills of acting, design and directing for the stage. In addition the students are involved in the creation of a play through research, games, improvisations, debates and group script-writing; the plays normally focus on current social (often controversial) issues in Botswana and seek cooperation with agencies directly involved in social transformation. These productions have become a regular feature of Botswana's cultural calendar. Since 1996 they have been showcased annually in Botswana's major cultural event, the Maitisong Festival, and several productions have also been toured to venues in South Africa. Playscripts are available for these plays from the English Department. Many of the students involved in these productions are also part of the Travelling Theatre, another cultural group under the umbrella of the English Department. Where the Travelling Theatre is a voluntary, informal club, UBE423 is part of an optional but formal course. An overview of UBE423's work has been written by David Kerr and published in AUETSA 96 Conference Proceedings (ed. H.Wittenberg & L.Nas), University of Cape town 1997 and Southern African Theatre Journal, 11/1, Stellenbosch, 1998.
The focus is on Women's maintenance rights. The main character Mabontle faints during a revivalist meeting and is confronted by the ghost of her grandmother, Mma Ditshotlo. Mabontle relives the events, which have brought her to the brink of suicide. We see her marriage to Mosotli descend into jealousy and mutual recriminations. Mosutli abuses Mabontle, and abandons her for another woman, Daisy. Mabontle is left almost destitute as she tries to look after the children. She takes Mosotli to court to obtain maintenance, but is only granted the legal minimum of P50 per month. In a fantasy sequence Mma Ditshotlo shows Mabontle a different conclusion (with gender-sensitive litigants) where Mosotli would have to pay a much larger sum. Mma Ditshotlo urges Mabontle to fight for her rights rather than to give in to despair.
You Are not Dead received considerable help and support from two women's activist groups, Emang Basadi and Women in Law in Southern Africa. The play was performed in Gaborone and Otse. It was also translated into Setswana by Mmualefe Raditladi and published in 1997 by Longman Botswana under the title, Thari ya Lelwapa. An article about the play by David Kerr was published in Southern African Review of Books, 44, July-August 1996, Cape Town.
The play focussed on two different issues - sexual harassment at the work place and corruption in the Land Boards (an institution set up to administer access to land in the major villages of Botswana). The main character in the play, Lorato witnesses the corruption and sexual harassment indulged in by her manager, Mokwepa, including an attempt to deprive a group of San (Bushmen) herders of their land rights. Lorato reveals these actions to the press and Mokwepa resigns. The play, which received helped from the Human Rights NGO, Ditshwanelo, was performed in Gaborone.
In the same academic year UBE423 performed two scripted play, I Shall Sing for My Fatherland by Zakes Mda and F.Karim's The Interrogation.
The play is in the form of a dramatised debate dealing with issues of mixed (inter-racial and inter-cultural) marriages. It also examines the implications of Botswana's Citizenship Act, tracing its male biases in Botswwna's history and culture. The play's main character, Seitiso, wishes to marry her Swedish fiancee, Grunner. She is discouraged (for very different reasons) by her cousin, Lulu, her brother Dinku, and her women's rights activist-friend, Makwena. A debate between Dinku and Makwena comes to life as a play-within-a-play (using puppets) in order to depict the struggle of a real Motswana, woman, Unity Dow, to change Botswana's Citizenship act. By the end of the play, Seitiso decides to have her children by Grunner out of wedlock, in order to avoid making them stateless.
Much research went into the making of the play, including at the Attorney general's library (in order to obtain a transcript of the Unity Dow cases), at the library of Metlahaetsile, a woman's rights NGO in Mochudi and interviews with Unity Dow herself. The title of the play was adapted from a bumper sticker on Unity Dow's car, which read, "I Love My Country but I Fear My Government". UBE423 performed I Love My country But… in Gaborone, Mochudi and at the Market Theatre Laboratory in Johannesburg, where it provided the focus for a short seminar on Community Theatre in post-Apartheid Southern Africa. A few months after the play's first performance, the Botswana Parliament amended sections 3,4 &5, the gender discriminatory sections of the Citizenship Act. An article about the play is to be found in Mmegi, April 21st 1995.
This play is about the South African born writer, Bessie Head, who settled in Botswana, where she wrote most of her famous novels and stories. The production coincided with the tenth anniversary of Bessie Head's death. The play starts with Bessie dying of Hepatitis in Serowe. Bessie's Ghost is then shown meeting ancestral spirits for judgement. The spirits ask Bessie's ghost to relive key incidents in her life. The "live" Bessie was played by a different actor for these flashback scenes. The life is a tragic one: born in Pietermaritzburg mental Hospital of a white woman and a black father, Bessie is adopted by a coloured family, sent to a strict orphanage, has an unsuccessful induction into PAC's anti-apartheid political struggle, marries and divorces, flees with her son, Howard to Botswana, where her attempts to settle down as a refugee are foiled by her own stubbornness and by experiences of sexism and ethnocentrism in her chosen country. Despite a series of shattering metal breakdowns, political indiscretions and a life of extreme poverty and loneliness, she manages to write her famous books. This life forms the basis on which Bessie is judged after death. The Death and Life of Bessie Head raises issues about racism, political commitment, sexual harassment, the links between creativity and mental distress, and the role of women in African society.
The main sources for the play were Gillian Eilerson's recently published autobiography, Thunder Behind her Ears and Bessie's own writings, particularly, A Question of Power. The play was performed in Gaborone (including the Maitisong Festival) and in Johannesburg at the Market Theatre Laboratory's annual community Theatre Festival. Photographs from the play formed part of an exhibition about Bessie Head at the Khama III Museum in Serowe; the exhibition was toured around various South African museums. A review of the play can be found in The Midweek Sun (Gaborone), April 10th 1996. Articles about and/or photos of the play can be found in Mmegi, 29th March 1996, Gaborone; The Star, May 22nd 1996, Johannesburg, The Mail and Guardian, May 31st - June 6th 1996, Johannesburg; and Marang o Ngwao: Rays of Culture, 4, June 1996, Gaborone. A longer article about the play (by David Kerr) was presented as a conference paper at the Bessie Head conference, University of Botswana in 1998. This article is to be published in a special issue of the English departmental journal Marang as part of the Proceedings of the conference.
In this play the title refers to a trance dance performed by three farmers at the bequest of a Mosarwa (San) ngaka (spirit medium), Xukuli, whom they have come to consult. One of the farmers (Motswedi) is rich, one (Motimedi) is of middle income, and one (Bogosi) is poor. The play consists of the visions, which the three men see in their dance. The visions themselves show how the modern generation of Batswana are suffering from a curse made by a Mosarwa woman in the 19th century (an earlier incarnation of Xukuli) in reaction to the Batswana's willingness to open up the veld for the commercial cattle industry. The curse is closely connected with the development of the cash nexus and the westernisation of Botswana. It culminates in the 1995 outbreak of cattle lung disease, which affects Bogosi, Motimedi and Motswedi in different ways. The play ends on a note of tentative reconciliation, with speculation about ways in which the curse can be removed. UBE 423 received help in the making of this play from two sister departments at UB, the History Department which gave advice about readings for the background of the play, and African Languages and Literature, where a visiting scholar, Professor Collins, gave advice about San language and culture.
UBE423 performed Vision in a Dance in Gaborone (including the Maitisong Festival), Mmabatho, Thabazimbi and Johannesburg (for the Community Theatre Festival). Extracts from the play were also shown on Mmabatho Television. An article about this play is to be published in a future issue of Southern African Theatre Journal. A photograph from the play is used as an illustration in the 1999 edition of The Enjoyment of Theatre by K. Cameron & P. Gillespie (Macmillan, New York).
The main production, I Don't Shout 'Viva' Anymore follows the career of Tiro from radical student hero to the problems he has obtaining a job when he leaves University. The pressures of life cause him to lose his principles and become a corrupt nepotist, stealing money from an NGO, which is supposed to be helping the rural poor. His problems reach a climax in a conflict with his girlfriend, Goitse, who retains her principles. By the end of the play a new student hero is making the same kind of radical speeches which Tiro once made. The audience is invited to think about the cyclical nature of student politics. I Don't Shout 'Viva' Anymore was performed in Gaborone and at the Sibikwa Theatre in Johannesburg. An article about the play is to be found in Mmegi, 20th March 1998, Gaborone.
In 1997-98, UBE423 also produced a scripted play, The Infidel by UB lecturer, Fani Omoregie. In addition, three members of UBE 423 attended a workshop given by Fiona Ledger of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Together, they created a work-shopped radio play entitled Tales of a University Campus, which was broadcast several times on the World Service of the BBC.
This play focuses on issues concerning sexual abuse of children. The play deals with the attempts by Kedibonye, a social worker at Childline, and a Ugandan psychiatrist, Dr. Lubega, to counsel and treat two girls, Nchadi and Tshwenyi. During the consultation, flashbacks tell us the stories of the two girls. Nchadi is abused by her teacher, then by a paedophile tourist, before entering the life of a child prostitute. Tshwenyi, having been abused by her stepfather, becomes dumb. In the process of counseling the two girls, Kedibonye gradually realises that Dr. Lubega himself has a history of sexual abuse (during Uganda's political unrest in the early 1980s); this is affecting his ability to treat the girls. His personal therapy becomes intertwined with that of Nchadi and Tshwenyi in the play's violent climax. The play which was researched with help from UB's Social Work Department, the Human Rights NGO, Ditshwanelo and social workers from the child-protection NGO, Childline, was performed several times in Gaborone. A brief article about the play appeared in Mmegi, 9th-15th April 1999, Gaborone. A longer article, prepared for a conference in Bayreuth, Germany, is available from the English Department.
Copyright © 2000 University of Botswana English Department
Last updated 23 January 2000