The audience makes the production their own. They find the lesson they want to find in it and then they use it for their own purposes.Footnote 2
Like researchers, artists construct the stages where the manifestation and effects of their skills are exhibited, rendered uncertain in the terms of the new idiom that conveys a new intellectual adventure. The effect of the idiom cannot be anticipated. It requires the spectators who play the role of active interpreters, who develop their own translation in order to appropriate the ‘story’ and make it their own story.Footnote 3
The question of what exactly audiences make of theatrical performances they see is at the heart of this paper. Scholars and practitioners of theatre have recognized the central role of audiences in any given performance context. This centrality of the audience is due obviously to the fact that they are the raison d’être of any performance event. As Helen Freshwater asserts, it is for them that artists create; they are indispensable.Footnote 4 Susan Bennett's influential book Theatre Audiences, one of the earliest book-length studies of the subject, shows how reader-response theories apply only to a limited extent to the theatrical event: theatre as a live event requires the audiences’ actual presence in the shared space and time with performers.Footnote 5 Audience research has, however, been fraught with controversies and contestations over the years. Dennis Kennedy, for example, warns that any consideration of audiences can quickly lead the researcher into ‘intellectual quicksand’.Footnote 6 This, he asserts, is due to the ephemeral nature of spectatorship and the fact that the reactions of audiences are ‘chiefly private and internal’ and thus difficult to record. He insists that ‘regardless of the mechanism used’, audience-survey results are bound to be belated and partial and thus conclusions made are always ‘false on some level’.Footnote 7 Regardless of this, Kennedy recognizes their indispensability, noting that ‘the spectator is the unspoken topic of most work in theatre and performance studies’.Footnote 8
Clearly, audience research is important. Taking into account Kennedy's warnings, the question then arises of how one conducts credible audience research. How may we ascertain how individual spectators and collective audiences engage with shows they watch?Footnote 9 How can we tell what it is specifically that spectators take away from a performance? Willmar Sauter outlines the varied ways in which researchers over the years have attempted to do this, drawing distinctions between audience research and reception research. The former is concerned mainly with ‘describing the features of existing or potential theatre audiences’, while the latter deals with ‘the ways in which spectators experience performances’, which is possible only ‘when the researcher also has a clear picture of the spectator's object, that is, the theatrical performance itself’.Footnote 10 Within reception research, Sauter further distinguishes between macro and micro aspects, or between ‘a sociological and a psychological aspect’. The differences between these two aspects, he argues, may be viewed as ‘partly emphasizing two points of interest, and partly as the application of two methodological strategies’.Footnote 11 At the macro level, researchers are interested in who experiences what, and at the micro level they are concerned with the reactions of the spectator during the performance.
There are obvious areas of overlap between these approaches to studying audiences and the reception of theatre.Footnote 12 Sauter's own study of Swedish audiences employed what he calls ‘Theatre Talks’, and sought to determine what most impressed audiences at performances.Footnote 13 Prearranged groups of up to seven people who knew each other would watch a show together and then go to a private place immediately afterwards to discuss what they had seen, without any prompting questions. It was assumed that they would discuss the shows according to what most interested or impressed them. These discussions were recorded and later analysed. Sauter's research and other studies he discusses show that it is possible to capture the experiences of audiences to a meaningful degree. Sauter's model of reception research is important as it seeks to ascertain from ordinary members of the audience their views on specific performances. Helen Freshwater notes ‘the continuing absence of the voices and opinions of “ordinary” audience members who have no professional links to the theatre’ simply because theatre scholars fail to ask them directly.Footnote 14 She attributes this failure to a variety of reasons. One of the reasons she proffers, drawing on Christopher Balme's analysis, is the lack of training in the ‘fields of empirical psychology and sociology’ of theatre scholars, which poses ‘substantial methodological challenges’ in delivering ‘rigorous audience research’.Footnote 15 As Sauter demonstrates, however, the questions that researchers are seeking to answer in reception research will determine the methods employed, and the question whether ‘certain theoretical and methodological approaches [are] more reliable than others’ would have to be answered by individual researchers.Footnote 16
There is evident value in asking audiences directly what they make of performances they see, despite the fact that these may be ‘chiefly private and internal’.Footnote 17 In the second epigraph to this article, Jacques Rancière points to the audience's active role as interpreters, appropriating and translating the stories told onstage for their own use. The first epigraph, drawn from my interview with Ghanaian playwright and director Ebo Whyte, highlights the independence that he believes his audiences exercise in interpreting and appropriating his shows for their own ends. For Whyte, this independent engagement of his audiences with his shows is very important, as his theatre seeks to challenge the status quo in Ghana and to get his audiences to change their attitudes and behaviour. Whyte, known nationwide as Uncle Ebo Whyte, is the founder and CEO of Roverman Productions, a Ghanaian production company that since 2008 has become very well known in Ghana for its quarterly theatre performances. Roverman also produces a monthly magazine, Rover Report Monthly, and Whyte has a bi-weekly slot on Ghana's premiere FM radio station, Joy FM, where he delivers ten-minute motivational messages or commentaries on social and political issues, dubbed Food for Thought. Roverman Productions has as its tag the slogan ‘Be the Difference’, and on its website its mission statement reads,
We thrive on creativity, setting standards and shifting paradigms. We believe in making a difference in the lives of our patrons and readers, and in every facet of life. We at Roverman Productions aim to continuously produce captivating plays and publish thought-provoking literature to influence the socio-political lives of Ghanaians and change their mentality.Footnote 18
In Ghana, a post-colonial state struggling towards autarky, these are high ambitions. Regarded, in the last two decades, as one of the most politically stable countries in the West African sub-region, Ghana is a country blessed with abundant human and natural resources. Since independence in 1957, however, it has not been able to fully exploit all its resources for the good of the ordinary people in the country.Footnote 19 Illiteracy and graduate unemployment remain high, and although there appears to be a growing middle class, many people continue to live below the poverty line.Footnote 20 Inept leadership and corruption in government and in the public sector continue to cripple the economy and leave in their wake several social problems for the majority of people.Footnote 21
It is within this context that Ebo Whyte and his Roverman Productions work. Since 2008, they have produced a new play each quarter of the year. At the end of each year, in late December to early January, the year's plays are put together in a festival. In the 2013–14 festival, which marked the fifth anniversary of the company, an extra play from the repertoire was added, making five in total. The scheduling of these festivals during the holiday period ensures maximum audience turnout. This is a clever strategy, as corroborated by research carried out in South Africa, which found that ‘festivals should preferably be held over holiday seasons to accommodate attendees during a time of year where they have sufficient leisure time at hand’.Footnote 22 Moreover, aside from university theatres where there are constant productions of plays by students and faculty of the departments of theatre studies during the academic year, no other theatre company comes close to such consistent presentation of plays in the country.Footnote 23
Roverman seeks to entertain its audiences as well as to affect them in ways that would bring about some shifts in their thinking and behaviour. This indeed has long been the role of storytellers in the African context. As Femi Osofisan, the well-known Nigerian playwright and theatre director has noted,
all our artists – from the ancient oral performers to their modern scribal heirs . . . – have accepted and reveled in their identity as communal spokespersons and as the conscience of their societies. The art of narration in our communities has always served didactic as well as pleasurable ends . . . The injunction ‘teach by entertaining’ . . . is what underlies the raconteur's praxis in black Africa.Footnote 24
As I have noted elsewhere, this didactic approach by playwrights and theatre producers in Africa meets with the expectations of their audiences, who ‘expect to learn lessons from plays they watch and for most of them, entertainment alone is not enough when they go to the theatre’.Footnote 25
With such expectations from their audiences, then, it would seem that Roverman has its job cut out for it. However, as noted above, ascertaining what audiences take away from productions is a perennial difficulty, though not altogether impossible. Whyte believes that his audiences make use of his plays for their own ends. What are these ends? How do audiences use what they see onstage? What do they make of the performances they see? What do they take away with them in the first place? And most importantly for this research, what methods may be used to discover the answers to these questions?
At the 2013–14 festival of plays by this company at the National Theatre in Accra, I attempted to find out by asking the audiences directly. I sought to gauge audience members’ immediate reactions to, and modes of engagement with, the plays they had just seen. This paper presents the work of this theatre group vis-à-vis the personality of the playwright/director/producer and his admiring audiences in Ghana and examines these audiences’ engagement with the plays presented at the festival.
Methodology
The festival of plays covered a period of five days in total; 29–30 December 2013 and 1, 4 and 5 January 2014. On each of these days, there were two performances of the same play, at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., making a total of ten shows over the period. I used participant observation, questionnaires and focus-group discussions to gather my data. I attended two rehearsals leading to the festival and was present at all ten shows, observing what went on in and around the auditorium, from 3 p.m. until 10.30 p.m. on each of the performance days. Inspired by Sauter's research among Swedish audiences, I used a modified version of his Theatre Talks, much closer to focus-group discussions. Whereas his post-performance discussions did not involve asking any questions, I had specific questions that I wanted the group to discuss.Footnote 26 The discussions took place between the two shows, from 6.30 to 7.30 p.m. Following Sauter's example and standard focus-group discussion practices, we kept the numbers low to allow for better interaction. An announcement after the first performance was made, asking for seven to eight volunteers who were willing to spend up to forty-five minutes discussing the show they had just seen. This worked each time. On the second night we had more people than we needed and had to send some away. This constitutes another major departure from Sauter's model. He used prearranged groups of people who already knew each other and who knew in advance of the shows that they would be discussing what they were about to see. My strategy brought together diverse groups of people who did not necessarily know each other and who watched the shows without knowing they would be called upon to discuss them afterwards.Footnote 27 In Sauter's model, the participants may have watched the shows more carefully, noting points of interest they would raise in the post-performance discussions. My participants had watched the performances without any prior warnings of what might be required of them and thus came to the discussions, I would argue, with their simple impressions of the shows. While Sauter's groups would have been immediately at ease with each other and thus discussed their impressions without inhibitions, due to their prior knowledge of each other, my participants needed a few minutes to ease into comfortable discussions. This, in the end, was not a huge problem, as participants on the whole appeared comfortable and freely contributed to the discussions.
As with Sauter's example, a private space was found, but within the premises of the theatre, where there was a round table with chairs around which we could sit and talk over light refreshments. There were a total of five group discussions. This paper draws mainly on these discussions, which took place between the shows. They were recorded on video for later analysis. In addition, I distributed questionnaires to audience members, of which 281 were completed, representing more than 60 per cent of the total number distributed. Data from the questionnaires served to confirm information on the demographics of the audiences and my own personal observations. For example, data collected showed that an overwhelming majority of people who attend these performances are highly educated and are in gainful employment. Ninety-five percent of respondents had up to tertiary-level education, and 67 per cent were employed, with 17.6 per cent being students. A mere 2.2 per cent were unemployed while 1.1 per cent were retired.
I led the discussions after the shows, which revolved around five main issues:
• The audience's perception of what the plays they had just seen were about.
• The impact of the Roverman productions in general.
• Aesthetic pleasure; that is, what had appealed to them in the plays.
• Their dislikes, or things they were not too pleased with.
• Their theatre culture or patronage of theatre and the arts in general.
The longest meeting lasted for about an hour, but mostly the discussions lasted for forty-five to fifty minutes.
Making the plays their own: themes and issues identified by audiences
It was evident from the group discussions that these volunteers had been keen participants in the theatre event. They freely and enthusiastically recounted what the various plays had presented to them. Since they had just watched the plays, it was not difficult for them to remember events and issues addressed. Having these discussions immediately after the performances was therefore ideal, though the fact that time erodes one's memory of the event and its lessons points to the possible ephemeral impact of theatre.
It emerged that Uncle Ebo Whyte is a pivotal motivation for attendance by most of these patrons. Many of the volunteers for the discussion were keen admirers of the playwright and had been following his radio presentations and reading the Rover Report Monthly for years.Footnote 28 Their admiration was palpable. One participant, for example, speaking about other theatre performances in the country, said, ‘Uncle Ebo is doing something here that the others do not do. It is about professionalism’.Footnote 29 Volunteering for the discussion was in large part their way of expressing this support and admiration.Footnote 30 This is an important starting point for discussing the ways in which these audiences relate to the performances. Whyte's personality must be seen as a frame for his audiences’ reception of his theatre. As Sauter shows, in reference to Anne-Marie Gourdon's research among Parisian audiences, ‘it is possible for audience perception of the theatrical event to be ‘preprogrammed by the status of the venue and the company’, in which case audiences may be responding ‘to a wide range of theatrical and non-theatrical stimuli’.Footnote 31
In a real sense, therefore, the audiences at the festival were responding not only to the performances they saw, but also to all that Ebo Whyte has come to symbolize. Several times, participants made references to his radio presentations and monthly magazine alongside the plays under discussion. These had become a frame through which the plays were received and interpreted.
Now I shall turn my attention to highlights of the discussion of two of the plays in tandem.
The first play in the festival, What's My Name?, is set in the offices of a radio station and revolves around the company driver, who calls himself ‘Mr Smooth’.Footnote 32 He is a dubious character reminiscent of Kweku Ananse, the trickster spider character of Ghanaian folklore, who constantly outwits people, animals and even gods with its wily ways and dual identity as an insect and a human, a villain and a hero.Footnote 33 ‘Mr Smooth’ knows everyone's secrets and has a record of all the corrupt deals of his bosses, most of which were conducted with his assistance. He also has recordings of damaging conversations between various people whom he has driven in the past. He is involved in all manner of scams and multiple love affairs. The law finally catches up with him in a visa scam but he cunningly escapes punishment at the end of the play.
Mr Smooth (Quabena Ohemeng) revealing some of the damaging information he has on his bosses (Edem Adimado, seated; and Andrew Adote, standing to the left) at the offices of the Radio Station in What's My Name?.
The main point of the play is summed up in the view of one of the participants in the discussion: ‘I think that the issue of corruption clearly stands out. Everyone has some cobwebs in their wardrobe’.Footnote 34 The play addresses the prevalence of corruption in Ghanaian society, from the lowest-ranking person to the highest-ranking boss. There was a lively discussion of the issue with many participants agreeing that corruption is endemic and that those who stand against it end up being seen as the odd ones out. Another participant put it this way: ‘These things are happening but we have accepted them as the norm so that if you don't do it people see you as strange’.Footnote 35 It was interesting to see how quickly everyone agreed with this view while noting that it was wrong and that something had to be done about it. Another participant observed, ‘I also think that is the essence of Uncle Ebo's plays; he exposes the wrong in the society and he does it so well that you can't even debate the issue’.Footnote 36 Indeed, Whyte's penchant for drawing on topical issues and his acute knowledge of the Ghanaian situation is brought to the fore here. In the news just a few weeks earlier a driver for a minister of state had actually recorded a conversation by the minister in her car, which had exposed her plans for amassing wealth while in office.Footnote 37 The public outcry against her had led to her dismissal by the president. Naturally, this play reminded the participants of that incident, which actually happened after the show was first performed earlier in the year. The participants acknowledged that Whyte does not provide any easy or glib solutions, but rather exposes the situations and leaves it to the audience to decide what the right thing to do is. One audience member observed that everyone is convinced of the wrong but it is an ‘individual matter what happens afterwards’.Footnote 38
This notion that there are no easy solutions provided by the play and the fact of the seriousness of the problem of corruption led to a discussion of possible solutions to it. The idea that it is an ‘individual matter’ was persistent. Another participant observed,
I see the solution in the self-conviction. It [the play] convicts you and you find yourself in the play . . . And you can really identify with the play. Most of the time when we talk about corruption, other people come to mind, but the play makes you see the corruption in yourself.Footnote 39
This participant identifies with the situations in the play and thus draws conclusions related to himself and personalizes the issues. Sauter notes that identification is one of the emotional processes of audiences that has most attracted reception researchers.Footnote 40 This was clearly the case among participants, and was articulated here by this person, who claimed a realization of self from the events in the play. Others in the group felt that the very fact that these prevalent issues in society had been exposed onstage was enough to begin the process of change. Another of the participants drew attention to the idea that it would take some level of boldness to go against the grain, as often persons who attempt to be different run into many problems, sometimes including state sanctions. He elaborates:
I see a problem in the country, very related to the play we saw today. It is human that we all have our faults and that is what the play showed. There is a lot of hypocrisy in this country . . . everybody points a finger at others and tries to hide their own faults . . . But if you look at the country that is exactly what is going on, we rather bring people down. Let somebody try to start a campaign or do something right and the next thing you see, people would use even state resources to investigate them and bring them down. And in no time they are branded as evil and brought down.Footnote 41
Pressed to give some examples, the participant went on to relate an incident involving a well-known preacher who had openly criticized the government over a corruption scandal. Within days, it was alleged that he was a spokesperson for the main opposition party in the country, and he was vilified thereafter in the media. The audience member concluded that ‘if you are opposed for doing the right thing and you change your stand, then you become weak, but if you still stand by what you believe in, then you end up being the winner’.Footnote 42 It was generally agreed that it was possible to stand up for the right thing; just that it required a great deal of courage.
Another participant took the discussion further, wading into the common narrative of religious belief:
If I am a supervisor and in my little supervisory role I try to effect changes, and we all try to do that, I think like Jesus we can all bring about change in our own small way. He was alone and he could do all that. So what are we doing individually? What are you doing?Footnote 43
The last national census of Ghana in 2010 indicates that over 60 per cent of Ghanaians identify themselves as Christians.Footnote 44 Indeed, there is currently a proliferation of Christian churches in the country, which can be found on nearly every street corner in Accra, the capital city. It has even been claimed that ‘Ghana's ethos is recognisably Christian’.Footnote 45 Thus the situation where corruption is so endemic in the country, the last participant suggests, raises questions about the quality of people's Christian commitment. If Jesus could bring about change, then so could each individual Christian in his or her own small way. Of course the situation is not as simple as that. The factors that have led to the current state of endemic corruption are varied and complex, as Gifford points out in his discussion of the public role of Christianity in Africa.Footnote 46 Nevertheless, the participants felt that change was possible and pointed to the possibility of it coming from the Christian church and individuals within it. As was to be expected, the issue of corruption was not limited to this first play alone. The next play to be considered, however, focused on domestic rather than public space.
The Day Dad Came, the second play to be discussed, is concerned with abuse in marriage and the role of the extended family. Ama is constantly abused both verbally and physically by her husband Kofi, but she carefully hides the fact from her father and sister as well as her friends. The situation comes to light when her sister pays her a surprise visit on her birthday and witnesses Kofi's violence at first hand. She promptly informs her father, who intervenes by contacting Kofi's parents and demanding a family meeting. At the meeting, he insists on taking his daughter back home, saying he will give her back only if Kofi promises to take better care of her. Ama is unwilling to give in to her father's demands and insists that there is nothing wrong with her marriage. A series of events, including an unexpected declaration of love by a work colleague and a supernatural encounter with an angel disguised as an old woman, all contribute to making Ama realize her own self-worth, giving her the courage to leave Kofi. Her action in turn makes Kofi aware of his need to change, and thus work towards reconciling with his wife.
Ama is visited by an Angel in The Day Dad Came. Ama Twumwaa as Ama and Myna Otoo as the angel.
Ama (Ama Twumwaa) trying to persuade her father (Kabutey Ocansey) that all is well in her marriage in The Day Dad Came.
This play provoked heated discussion among participants. They agreed that abuse in marriage is common in Ghana and that many women are, like Ama, reluctant to reveal the truth. The role of the father was also a point of discussion. In Ghana, as in many other African countries, men have to pay a bride price for their wives and sometimes this is taken to mean that the husband has total authority over his wife. In this instance, we are told that Ama's father refused to accept anything from his son-in-law when his daughter got married. One participant commented,
Very few fathers would give their daughters out in marriage without taking a single cedi, so with this one he could come back and say ‘remember what I told you that my daughter is priceless’? So his role as a father in the play, really gives a lot to think about. I have three daughters, and I don't know if I would be able to carry through the whole lengths he went, but there is a lot of learning to do from the play.Footnote 47
There is a suggestion here that because the father had not accepted any bride price for his daughter, he had the moral right to demand better treatment for her. The Domestic Violence Bill was passed by the Ghanaian parliament in February 2007 after several years of lobbying and advocacy by women's groups. On passage of the bill, Esther Obeng-Dapaah, then head of the Committee on Women and Children, was reported to have said,
it has been a very difficult journey since the concept that the bill seeks to propose is new to our socio-cultural practices. Discrimination against women are [sic] so entrenched in our part of the world that some people could not understand why such laws should be enacted to protect the interest of women . . . to such people domestic problems should not be handled at the courts.Footnote 48
With increasing public education on the issue, more and more people are being brought to justice for such abusive acts. A continuing problem, however, is the unwillingness of women to expose their private sufferings, particularly for the sake of their children; they do not want their marriages to end in divorce. Additionally, because of the exorbitant bride prices that can be demanded, some families insist that their daughters remain in such marriages as a divorce might require that they return the bride price to the man. As another participant observed,
There was something that I found interesting. I was asking my friend if Ghanaian fathers do that. I thought in Ghana, fathers would make you go back to your husband if you went to complain, but this one took charge and said, ‘you cannot treat my daughter this way, she is of value’ . . . Usually they force you [to remain in the marriage] even though you are physically abused.Footnote 49
The action of this father was thus seen as departing from the norm and as challenging traditional values by bringing to the fore changes that were needed. The willingness of participants to share personal experiences, which were related to what they had seen onstage, often took me by surprise. A woman in this group shared her own experience, which was very similar to Ama's. She had watched the play when it had been first produced earlier in the year, but had come to see it again.Footnote 50 She shared,
I am a divorcee, just about a month or so ago. The first time I watched this I wasn't divorced and I was facing a similar situation so I identified so much with what was going on. My family was so supportive, although they did not want the divorce, they also did not want the abuse. The guy was just showing disrespect; no amount of pampering and talking to [the man] could help. Deep down in me I was wondering if they [i.e. her extended family] should not leave me alone, and I wondered if I should not just ignore them and continue with my marriage and not care, even if I died, but when I watched this, I realized what they were doing was not bad and I am glad today I can be here to be discussing this.Footnote 51
Though Whyte's play did not end in a divorce between Ama and her husband, evidently the production had helped this individual member of the audience to accept the help of her family to leave an abusive marriage. This generated a discussion about when it was acceptable for a person to walk out of an abusive marriage. The participants all agreed that had Kofi not reformed, Ama should not have agreed to return to the marriage and all lauded the action of the father in the play.
Overall, these discussions gave the participants the opportunity to talk about what otherwise would have been their ‘chiefly private and internal’ reactions to the shows. I had asked them directly to tell me how the plays had impacted them and they were more than willing to share their experiences. I found it inspiring that they saw the plays as contributing to their lives in very palpable ways.
Aesthetics of Roverman plays and the theatre culture of participants
The set designs, the quality of acting, sound quality, use of music and dance, as well as the quality of language used, were much appreciated by the participants. It was interesting to note the details they picked up. Roverman Productions adopt high standards in the construction of their sets, which are often realistic and multiple, as the needs of the play may be. There are never any long scene changes, which characterize other less professional or less well-resourced theatre offerings in the country. Their sound engineering is also professional. Actors are all fitted with lapel microphones to ensure they are heard, whereas other productions rely more on actors projecting their voices, and on hidden stage microphones. The productions incorporate intermittent songs by the actors backed by music from a live band situated in the orchestral pit of the National Theatre stage. These are popular songs that fit the theme of the play and express the sentiments of the actors at particular points of the action. They enhance the entertainment value of the productions and showcase the virtuosity of actors. The live band also provides music to which all the actors dance at the end of each show.Footnote 52 The closing dance performance is usually choreographed and includes contemporary dance movements, which are very popular.
Participants commented on all of these elements, sometimes with a level of detail I found surprising. One, for example, said, ‘I really have an eye for details, so I was really impressed . . . There was no hitch, it was really impressive. Their costume, their handbags, everything was good; they poured real juice, the money was real money’.Footnote 53 The strict punctuality of performances was also commented on in all five discussion groups. Many scheduled programmes in Ghana begin late. The Roverman productions, however, are an exception. The curtain rises at exactly 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. and those who come in late miss out on the early scenes. People commented on this and saw it as part of the group's professionalism, which was worth emulating. Here it is worth noting that Roverman Productions are living out their values expressed in their motto, ‘Be the Difference’. Another participant mentioned the fact that the plays are ‘transparent’ and do not use ‘big English’ as being what he liked about them.Footnote 54 In other words, the language used is easy to understand.
Clearly, the Roverman productions at the Ghana National Theatre are a much-appreciated form of theatre in Ghana. In fact, there was hardly anything that the participants found fault with. This may be due to the frame of admiration for the director–playwright, as mentioned earlier, through which these performances are received. I personally find the three to four intermissions of the shows rather tedious. These are used to project advertisements of sponsors on screens at strategic points in the auditorium. The participants, however, thought these added to the appeal of the theatre event, providing opportunities for them to use the bathroom or attend to the needs of their children. Some were also of the view that the high cost of production made these advertisements unavoidable. The cost per ticket at the time of this festival was fifty Ghana cedis (GHC 50), the equivalent at the time of about twenty-five US dollars. One could also buy a season ticket at a discounted price of GHC 200 for all five shows. This is not cheap, when one considers the income levels of ordinary Ghanaians. Interestingly, however, only one or two participants complained about this high cost. Most felt that they got value for their money. One of the participants indicated that he saves monthly towards the Roverman shows, since he likes them so much. Data from the questionnaires, however, showed that 39.9 per cent of the respondents felt that the gate was expensive. But even there, a greater proportion (49.1 per cent) did not think it was too expensive while the remaining 11 per cent had no opinion on the matter.
This level of appreciation of the productions by these faithful participants is all the more significant when considered alongside the fact that very few of the people who volunteered for these discussions go to see other productions, either at the National Theatre or elsewhere in Accra. This is corroborated by the data from the questionnaires, which showed that out of 270 respondents who answered the question regarding their theatre-going habits, as many as 234 (87 per cent) did not go to other shows. A mere thirty-six (13 per cent) said they had been to see other shows. Those with wider experience of theatre-going had gained it while they were students on university campuses. While this may be a reflection of the fact that there are very few professional theatre companies with regular offerings within the country, it is also most definitely an acknowledgement of the significance of the impact of Ebo Whyte's brand of theatre. He has admiring and appreciative audiences who are eager to take what is presented to them and to make it their own, drawing lessons that affect the choices they make in their personal lives.
Awareness that leads to change?
Is it possible to ascertain what audiences take away from performances and the impressions these performances leave them with? I believe that this is possible if one asks them directly. The methodology employed in this research – a modified version of Sauter's Theatre Talks, which invite ‘ordinary’ members of the audience to talk about their experiences of the theatrical event without any prior warning, immediately after the shows and with guiding questions – provided an excellent opportunity for discovering their immediate reactions. Taken together with data from a questionnaire and my own participant observations of the theatrical event, the sincerity of their responses can hardly be in doubt. It is evident that Kennedy's argument that audiences’ ‘reactions are chiefly private and internal, and recording their encounters with events, regardless of the mechanism used to survey or register them is usually belated and inevitably partial’, cannot hold in this instance.Footnote 55 Because they were asked directly, these audience members willingly shared some reactions with me that might otherwise have remained ‘private and internal’. Sauter's Theatre Talks with his Swedish audiences assumed that his pre-selected group of participants would discuss what impressed them the most, without having to ask them any questions. This left the discussions wide open and he and his researchers then had the task of sifting through to determine what they were really looking for. As he found out in one instance, much of the audiences’ reactions hinged on the quality of the acting. In his own words,
Appreciation of the acting is . . . decisive for the spectator's interest in the fiction of the performance: if the acting quality is considered too low, then the spectator will not be prepared to discuss the content of the play. Only when he or she enjoys the acting will he or she also show an interest in what the performance is all about.Footnote 56
I did not have the time to allow such latitude with my participants. By asking them direct questions regarding what I was interested in, I targeted the conversations towards the desired results.
As is evident above, audiences see these plays as reflections of their everyday realities. There are also suggestions that, at the same time, the plays point to the need for a reconstruction of those realties. As Joachim Fiebach, writing about theatricality in Africa has noted, ‘Cultural performance as signifying practice appears to be essential for dealing with public matters in general and thus for constructing social realities’.Footnote 57 Whyte and his Roverman Productions have an agenda to contribute to positive change in Ghana. By publicly exposing common realities, they compel audiences of these plays to think about issues in a new light. I am aware of reservations to claims of a transformative power of theatre and the arts. However, there is evidence that theatre can and does contribute to influencing people's behaviour.Footnote 58 Femi Osofisan, who himself creates theatre aimed at changing the social attitudes of his Nigerian audiences, has indicated his belief that ‘the kind of awareness which may lead to change in society can be cultivated through the medium of art’.Footnote 59 Ebo Whyte combines his efforts through theatre with the medium of his monthly magazine and radio broadcasts, and this study shows he has an appreciative following. In the discussions after the plays, the participants were emphatic about the impact these plays have on them. Many of them expressed the desire to see these plays on national television, where they felt they would have a wider reach and greater influence. As is evident from my research, people's choices about their personal lives are affected by what they see onstage. One participant noted that the plays ‘serve as an avenue for self-reflection’.Footnote 60 The fact that there are lessons to be learnt and possibly applied to their own lives was rated as one of the attractions of these plays for participants and respondents to the questionnaire. One participant stated that the plays ‘teach a lot of lessons . . . things that we experience every day that we take for granted . . . his plays put a different perspective on them and make you reconsider your way of life’.Footnote 61 These audiences at the Roverman productions were actively taking what the plays presented to them and making it their own.
A section of the audience at a Roverman production, December 2015.
