This article examines the development of protest theatre in contemporary Zimbabwe, particularly in relation to the actions of, and responses by, the state. Towards the end of the 1990s, following a deterioration in the state of the economy and an increase in human rights violations, Zimbabwe was plunged into an economic and political crisis. Many citizens held President Robert Mugabe, who had been in power since 1987, and his ZANU–PF government, in power since Independence in 1980, responsible for their problems. The resentment grew so much that the situation became conducive to the formation of new political parties with the potential to remove the government from power. The greatest opposition came from labour, students, farmers and trade unions, and in 1999, the leadership of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions formed the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Morgan Tsvangirai. This party became the most formidable force in challenging the ruling party at the ballot box, and the following years saw a series of elections characterized by violent campaigning and contested results.
This article traces how the state has interacted with different varieties of protest theatre by examining the experiences of major protest theatre producers Amakhosi Theatre from Bulawayo (Zimbabwe's second-largest city), and Rooftop Promotions, Savanna Trust, Vhitori Entertainment and Edzai Isu Theatre from Harare, Zimbabwe's capital city. I first trace the different forms that Zimbabwe's protest theatre took between 1999 and 2008, when, after a particularly violent contestation over the presidential elections, ZANU–PF and MDC formed a Government of National Unity (GNU). However, the story does not end there. Instead, at that point, theatre-makers unhappy with the government's approach to resolving the tensions of the earlier crisis began to create ‘reconciliatory protest theatre’. In order to explain this seemingly paradoxical phrase, I discuss two examples in detail: Rituals by Rooftop Promotions, and No Voice, No Choice (2011) by Edzai Isu Theatre Arts Project and Zvido Zvevanhu Arts Ensemble. I show how the plays highlighted aspects of community life and everyday experience that were missing from state-led reconciliation efforts. I end by noting the ongoing relevance of protest theatre to life in present-day Zimbabwe.
1999–2008: panic theatre, agit-prop, and hit and run
Contemporary protest theatre has its roots in attempts to create new democratic spaces in an environment where the state had a media monopoly.Footnote 1 As Cont Mhlanga, director of Amakhosi Theatre, wrote in the year 2000,
Only the government and their political party and those that agree with it have the right to access radio, television and the daily press, while everyone else is shut down. Not only do they use it to promote their policies that have created very difficult conditions for the people, but also use it to embarrass and spread lies and propaganda against those that speak out and have different views than themselves.Footnote 2
The major concern of artists was that the state media failed to foster critically informed citizens who could participate in national debates. Protest theatre was created as an alternative, deliberative forum that could enhance the agency of citizens from various walks of life. Production houses that produced protest plays at the time included Edzai Isu Theatre Project led by Tafadzwa Muzondo, Vhitori Entertainment led by Silvanos Mudzvova, Rooftop Promotions headed by Daves Guzha, Savannah Trust led by Daniel Maposa, and Amakhosi Productions led by Cont Mhlanga. These media houses played an intermediary role between artists and donors who supported the initiative of theatre as alternative media for democratic debate.
The desire to provide alternative democratic media through theatre was evident in the mission statements of some of these organizations. Savanna Trust insisted that their vision was to build a ‘just and equitable society where all citizens freely and actively participate in its development’.Footnote 3 Rooftop Promotions claimed, ‘the objective is to serve as the mirror of society, as well as “the voice of the voiceless” by tackling and articulating issues of social relevance through the arts.’Footnote 4 The early days of the crisis saw the creation of a satirical and humorous style of performance sometimes known as panic theatre, or urgent theatre.Footnote 5 It poked fun at the general decline of the economy and the need for urgent action without, however, calling for regime change. Ganyau Express (2001) is a case in point. It was directed and scripted by Noel Marerwa and produced by Rooftop Promotions, which operated a venue called Theatre in the Park in Harare. Set in a bus, the play involves dialogue by ordinary Zimbabweans, some with individual names, and others with designations like ‘Hooligan’ and ‘Civil Servant’, who humorously mock what they view as gross incompetence by public officials who lack ethics and professionalism. Another Rooftop Promotions work, Rags and Garbages (2003), suggested that there was no difference between the behaviour of public officials and that of a madman (played by Walter Mparutsa). In Savanna Trust's Heaven's Diary (2005) a madwoman, Laiza, also attacked the establishment and called for an end to poverty. These insane characters had the freedom to say what Zimbabweans were normally afraid to talk about openly.
For its part, the state could afford a little humour; even oppositional newspapers carried cartoons that mocked state figures. Moreover, in the big urban centres the state could monitor protest theatre, allowing it to flourish as a gesture of tolerance.Footnote 6 State agents did not worry about it too much because they felt it was preaching to the converted urban dwellers who were mostly supporters of the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Things changed, however, with Roooftop Promotions’ Super Patriots and Morons (2003), directed by Daves Guzha. Initially the state treated the production as it did other comedies: it had a smooth run at Theatre in the Park, and even toured nationally. But by the time Rooftop restaged it in 2004, once again at Theatre in the Park, political parties had begun campaigns for the presidential elections of 2005, and it was banned. One likely reason for this is that Super Patriots and Morons went a step further than other plays: not only did it mock poverty, but it suggested that the cause lay in the incompetence of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, who was represented by the character of Super Patriot (Daves Guzha). The play showed how the state was controlling the hearts and minds of its citizens, and it incited them to stop laughing and take measures against the president.
Responding to the ban, Shepherd Mutamba, the spokesperson for Rooftop Promotions, complained, ‘It's a sad development. It's all about freedom of expression in what is supposed to be a democracy, which is being frustrated’.Footnote 7 However, once Super Patriots and Morons had highlighted the power of protest theatre to make political criticism, artists realized that they had to be more candid and more confrontational, and the following years, particularly between 2006 and 2008, witnessed the production of so-called agit-prop plays, which aimed to be more subversive than the earlier panic theatre. Such plays included Pregnant with Emotion (2006), Final Push (2007), The Good President (2007), Decades of Terror (2007), The Waiting (2008) and Two Leaders I Know (2008). These plays presented MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe (leader of ZANU–PF) onstage, and always showed how Tsvangirai was more intelligent and more capable than Mugabe. For example, in Final Push (2007), co-written and produced by Silvanos Mudzvova and Elton Mujanana of Vhitori Entertainment, the main struggle is between Tombe (who represents Tsvangirai) and Chiwara (who represents Mugabe.) Tombe and Chiwara are involved in a boxing match, where Chiwara is severely beaten because of his age. In another scenario, Tombe invites Chiwara's team for a soccer match. Chiwara's team is made up of a mixture of notorious dictators and authoritarian leaders, including Mobutu Sese Seko, Adolf Hilter, Hastings Banda, Slobodan Milošević, Hugo Chávez, Augusto Pinochet, Daniel arap Moi, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein and Jean-Bédel Bokassa.
The context of Final Push was particularly significant, and so were the consequences of its performance. Prior to the staging of the play, the MDC had called for a mass protest entitled ‘final push’. The police crushed the demonstration heavily. So when Silvanos Mudzvova staged Final Push at Theatre in the Park, it was widely seen as an extension of the MDC's agenda. For the first time in the development of contemporary protest theatre, artists were arrested and detained. Mudzvova and another actor from Final Push, Anthony Tongani, were brought to Harare Central Police Station and ‘forced to perform it a dozen times while in custody in front of police and intelligence officers’.Footnote 8 According to Mudzvova, he and Tongani were released because neither they nor Vhitori Entertainment appeared to have violated any law.Footnote 9 However, their treatment marked the point at which the state started to take agit-prop theatre more seriously, marking the growing complexity of the political situation.
A good example of such complexities is illustrated by the fate of another play from 2007, The Good President. Written and directed by Cont Mhlanga and co-produced by Amakhosi Theatre and Rooftop Promotions, The Good President premiered without problems at Theatre in the Park in Harare. On the second day of its run in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo, however, the riot police stopped the play and ordered everyone to leave the theatre.Footnote 10 It appears that the authorities wanted aspects of the play that were particularly sensitive in the local context to be altered. The play made reference to a unity accord signed in 1987 between ZANU–PF and another party, PF ZAPU, after a civil war in which many Ndebele-speaking people from Bulawayo and surrounding provinces had perished. ZAPU was disbanded and integrated into ZANU–PF. The play questioned why the older generation remained loyal to the unity accord in the face of economic and social problems caused by ZANU–PF. This attack on the accord was seen to constitute a threat to national security.
This turn of events highlighted three intriguing issues. The first concerned the varied roles of the police and other government bodies in the treatment of contentious plays. After his experience with The Good President, Mhlanga told the BBC, ‘we have been banned. We have been beaten. We are under surveillance twenty-four hours a day’.Footnote 11 However, Ravengai argues that artists used the term ‘banned’ loosely.Footnote 12 The police and not the Censorship Board stopped the play, though only the latter has the power to ban plays. In this respect, according to Ravengai, artists seem not to know the difference between banning and other forms of political control. Despite this confusion, however, it is clear that protest theatre was under siege from the authorities. While Ravengai and Zenenga have both claimed that the main instruments for suppressing protest theatre were the Access to Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), the police's treatment of Silvanos Mudzvova and Anthony Tongani from Final Push shows that the state failed to lay charges on them because POSA did not have a clause that permitted the incarceration of theatre practitioners on the basis of violating public order and security. The state therefore detained Mudzvova and Tongani as a strategy of intimidating them. Similarly, after The Good President affair, Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga stated that political theatre was the ‘work of political activists masquerading as artists’.Footnote 13
Ironically, perhaps, Matonga may have had a point, since the second interesting issue surrounding The Good President is the extent of some artists’ political involvement. This took different forms. In the same year as The Good President, Mhlanga created a protest movement which he called Voices for Change (VFC), launching it with the following statement:
A few months before the next combined Parliamentary and Presidential elections, some artists in Zimbabwe and their friends across the world have launched a new non-political movement called Voices For Change (VFC). This is a fast growing movement that supports creative artists from all disciplines to produce, perform, distribute and amplify the voices of the majority who live in difficult times while exposing the trickery and hypocrisy of the minority who live in good times while they claim to be acting on behalf of the people.Footnote 14
Although artists from different parts of Zimbabwe had produced various protest works, this was the first time they had formed a protest arts movement, whose mission was no longer to entertain, but actually to clamour for regime change in Zimbabwe. Moreover, in Mhlanga's case, this activity also extended into formal political participation. In 2008, he was involved in the revival of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) in Matabeleland, after it broke away from the ruling ZANU–PF, with whom it had been in alliance since 1987. In the elections of March 2008, Mhlanga successfully ran for a councillor's seat in his rural home in Lupane. During the campaign, he told journalist John Mokwetsi, ‘I chose to be a councillor because that brought me nearer the community. I am marrying politics with arts because I am saying I am going back home to start afresh and be with the people’.Footnote 15 Working with local artists and activists, he went on to direct a play entitled Kudliwa Sitsotsi (Electoral Crooks) which protested against ZANU–PF's use of food to woo the electorate.
A third issue relating to the suppression of plays like The Good President is the additional international attention it brought to artists championing human rights, democracy and good governance in Zimbabwe. For his efforts in defending freedom of expression, Mhlanga won $50,000 for the inaugural ArtVenture Freedom to Create prize.Footnote 16 Nevertheless, this increased visibility, and the forceful responses of the authorities to conventional theatre productions also led artists to develop a form of theatre aimed at avoiding detection and imprisonment, which they called ‘hit and run’ theatre. As Zenenga observes, the phrase ‘hit and run’ ‘aptly describes the combative aesthetic and pedagogical philosophies behind this new theatrical form’.Footnote 17 This type of protest theatre was mostly practised by Cont Mhlanga's Amakhosi Theatre and Savanna Trust. Mhlanga would take unknown actors to shopping malls, where they would stage a brief performance, leading to a post-performance discussion. Before many people realized that it was a performance, the actors would then move to another mall to avoid detection.Footnote 18 Similarly, Savanna Trust performed in beer halls, streets and other crowded places. One of their productions was called Simudzai Mureza (Lift the Flag, 2009). Centred on political violence, the play was about Fadzai, a rural girl caught in the predicament of visiting her home, having been raped there during the previous elections. Her father strongly advises her not to come home after spending five years in the city. He believes it will bring back painful memories or even the possibility of her being raped again, as the perpetrators are still flouting the law. An actor in this production noted that it was performed mostly in rural areas where they knew that they had to be very cautious, given the way ZANU–PF regarded the rural reserves as no-go areas for political activists. The actor stated that ‘hit and run would give us an opportunity in the rural areas because it would take time for the authorities to respond’.Footnote 19 Although state agents eventually came to know about this theatre, there is no record of artists of this form of theatre being banned or imprisoned, perhaps suggesting the effectiveness of hit and run as a strategy of staging protest theatre in rural Zimbabwe.
Reconciliatory protest theatre in post-crisis Zimbabwe
General elections were held in Zimbabwe in March 2008 to elect the president and parliament. In the first round, Tsvangirai gathered more votes for president than Mugabe, but a second round of voting was called for in June. It was an extremely violent campaign that the MDC decided to pull out of in order to save lives. After the election, in which Mugabe won the presidency and the MDC won a majority in the House of Assembly, there was a political stalemate. This crisis was solved by the creation of a coalition between the MDC and ZANU–PF, and the formation of the GNU, which created an Organ for National Healing and Reconciliation in order to heal the wounds of June 2008 and reconcile victims and perpetrators.
However, the attitude of many state agents toward this initiative was lukewarm. Having been active in electoral politics, theatre-makers now devoted their attention to the issue of healing and reconciliation. Through protest theatre, they pointed out how grass-roots and community models of healing were being sidelined. In addition they revealed how state actors, especially those coming from ZANU–PF, were undermining processes of healing and reconciliation. For example, Rooftop Promotions committed themselves to interrogating government policy on healing and reconciliation by producing plays such as Heal the Wounds (2009), Rituals (2010), Waiting for Constitution (2010) and Indigenous Indigenous (2012). Amongst these plays, Rituals generated controversy while at the same time proving so successful that it was performed beyond Zimbabwe's borders, touring to Kenya, Zambia and South Africa. Directed by Daves Guzha and written by Stephen Chifunyise, Rituals protested against the state's monopoly of the process of healing and transformation, and represented the struggle of communities to provide an alternative approach to healing and reconciliation in the aftermath of the crisis. As numerous scholars have argued, the post-crisis period was characterized by a policy vacuum about how healing and reconciliation were to be executed.Footnote 20 These scholars point out that even though the government created the Organ for National Healing, Reconciliation, and Integration (ONHRI), it was ineffective. This provided an opportunity for grass-roots models of community healing, which ‘represented a potential strategy capable of challenging the existing policy vacuum’.Footnote 21 Rituals responded by advancing an alternative approach to healing and reconciliation, but in the process this became a source of conflict with the state.
One of the greatest sources of contention over Rituals was the way in which the play championed the idea of truth and reconciliation. The main idea was that there could no reconciliation without exposing the crimes that were committed during the violence of June 2008. This approach invoked memories of a time when political parties emerged as the main perpetrators of political violence, opening up old wounds. When the play begins, Sarudzai (Chipo Bizure) has to participate in a community cleansing ritual called Kutanda Botso. Normally, this is performed by a child who has insulted or beaten his or her parents, in order to be forgiven. The perpetrator goes around the local villages asking for sorghum, millet and rapoko, which is then used to brew beer required during the ceremony. Sarudzai is a member of parliament who has insulted her parents and her community during the political violence. She has to swallow her pride by participating in a ritual where she begs for mercy from villagers who, under normal circumstances, are her subjects. Sarudzai's political adviser, Chipo, is not happy with her participation:
CHIPO: You cannot do what you want to do without the approval of the party.
SARUDZAI: I am not doing this on behalf of the party, Chipo. I am doing this for my family, my community and myself.
CHIPO: But you are a member of parliament and of a political party.
SARUDZAI: Chipo, can't you see that I want peace? I want reconciliation.
CHIPO: Our party wants peace. Our party wants reconciliation. But what you want to do, the party will never agree to it.
SARUDZAI: Look, Chipo, it is not the provincial leadership of the party that came here in 2008 and caused me to do harm to my family and community. Look, I must bring peace to myself and reconciliation to my community.
CHIPO: Sarudzai . . . the party's Security Committee would never allow this to go ahead. Just think, what will senior members of other political parties say when they hear that our very own senior member went about villagers, begging them, saying she was sorry, she was crazy, she was foolish? Which of these villagers is going to vote for you next year? Who wants to vote for a foolish member of parliament?
SARUDZAI: I am just saying that the actions I took in June 2008 were foolish.
CHIPO: No, what you are saying is that our party was foolish, our party was insane, our party was misguided, our party was wrong! That's exactly what you will be saying if you carry out this ritual. Besides, who is going to believe in this ritual anyway?Footnote 22
The text highlighted the reluctance of political elites to participate in processes of national healing, as that would undermine the sycophantic deification they enjoyed from intimidated villagers. Moreover, participation in such rituals would be a clear admission of the fact that they were misguided and wrong, an outcome which was too difficult for the egos of politicians to accept.
The fear of the truth as a hindrance to national healing and reconciliation was also demonstrated in another episode, when the play introduces John (Silvanos Mudzvova), who had killed opposition supporters in June 2008. The spirits of these people possess John, who becomes insane. Some members of John's family want the healer to cleanse John of the spirits. John's father, Muchoro (Zenzo Nyathi), wants John to forget what he did and saw because, according to him, forgetting is also healing. But the traditional healer (Joyce Moyo) insists that she cannot heal what she does not know about, so, before the ceremony can take place, John has to announce the names of the people he killed. Muchoro is afraid that if John does so, he will expose the names of other politicians who participated in the violence of June 2008. These politicians, he fears, will harm John's family. One of the relatives is afraid that John will be imprisoned. Michael Bratton points out that the retributive-justice model offered by the state emphasizes the criminal prosecution of wrongdoers. However, such a model cannot address issues of justice between the spirits of the people killed in political violence and their murderers.Footnote 23 Thus the play suggests that traditional rituals have to be incorporated into the country's approach to healing. In my view, unlike the courts, such traditional rituals are difficult to monitor in terms of the information that the general public then has access to. This lack of control is one of the likely reasons why some sections of the GNU were reluctant to embrace the community-centred approaches to healing and reconciliation.
In Rituals, Rooftop Promotions staged a reality that, in 2010, was still fresh in the minds of the people. Daves indicated that in some instances during the tour with Rituals in Bikita district, located in Masvingo Province in south-east Zimbabwe, villagers stopped the play to narrate how they were beaten by the youth members of political parties. Brawls started after the play as villagers demanded justice for their lost loved ones, livestock and property. Rape victims also stood up and named perpetrators. The situation was so tense that Guzha and his cast realized that it was beyond their control. He noted that it dawned on him at that moment that he needed the support of non-governmental organizations that dealt with post-war trauma.Footnote 24
Although Rituals did not mention any political party by name, some political figures recognized themselves in the play and accused the company of tarnishing their image. After the play had been presented to the Organ for National Healing and Reconciliation, a ZANU–PF youth member remarked,
As ZANU–PF youth league, we do believe in national healing. But we want a process that shows different truths, because everybody has a version of their own truth. When you already judge us and call us names, like the militia, you make us ZANU–PF youth appear as the perpetrators of violence. You will be surprised, when you start this process, about the truths you will hear.Footnote 25
The play had offered an alternative version of the truth that some political parties did not like. However the MDC youth representative offered a contrasting view. He remarked:
I believe that this process [of national healing] must be fully funded. That way we believe as a party, that if we are patient, and do things in this particular manner (i.e. as suggested in the play), together with what has been said by my colleagues, we as Zimbabweans, can achieve national healing.Footnote 26
The difference in the tone of responses from ZANU–PF and MDC representatives clearly shows how the revelation of the truth was treated by these parties. It reveals the fears of one part of the coalition in opening up wounds before healing them.
No Voice, No Choice (2011), performed by Edzai Isu Theatre Arts Project and Zvido Zvevanhu Arts Ensemble, also protested against the exploitation of youths who participated in political violence. It premiered on 27 October 2011 as part of the Protest Arts International Festival at Theatre in the Park. In the play, two youths, Tellmore (Everson Ndlovu) and GBH (Gibson Sarari) suffer from post-violence trauma, haunted by images of the murder, rape and torture that they witnessed during the political violence of June 2008. They reflect on their role during the violence of 2008 and realize that they were used by politicians. They launch a movement to preach to other youths about the dangers of political violence. This development irks Gondo (Livius Chitsungo), who used to be the militia leader of GBH and Tellmore's group. Gondo is quite old and he is not comfortable with the initiative as it threatens to unveil crimes buried in the past. Gondo attempts to intimidate the two, but they eventually tell Gondo that they were wrong to commit atrocities, and that they will not continue to be used by politicians. Gondo is shamed and leaves the two to make their own choices about their future.
The play acknowledges that during political violence that took place in Zimbabwe during the elections of 2008, dominant political parties used young people to execute acts of violence.
The play submits that rather than becoming political proxies, the youths should demand a voice in the governance of the country. Tafadzwa Muzondo, who directed, scripted and acted in the play, remarked,
I dedicate this play to the resilient and innocent Zimbabwean who longs for freedom of choice, the unfortunate perpetrators of violence who are victims of unscrupulous politicians, and the naïve victim who suffers in silence forgetting that the violence will not go if they do not speak out. In ‘No Voice, No Choice’ I believe if someone does not say it, no one will say it, nothing will change and everyone will suffer.Footnote 27
Muzondo was aware that by making such remarks he was setting himself on a collision course with the state, since much of the violence had been perpetrated by the youth militias of the dominant political parties – part of a historical pattern. By enlightening the youth about such abuse, No Voice, No Choice delved into a reality that political parties were not always comfortable with. As in Rituals, the fear of the truth as an impediment to open dialogue on national healing was underscored. This is illustrated by the following dialogue from the play where, unhappy about the way in which the memory of political violence reflects his role as a perpetrator of violence, Gondo questions Tellmore and GBH about why they want to revisit the past:
TELLMORE: We are not portraying anything but the truth . . .
GONDO: What truth? Whose truth? Then what?
GBH: Then our community can see the ugliness of violence and desist from . . .
GONDO: This is a rebellion you are starting . . .
TELLMORE: We are not rebelling but reconciling our community . . .
GONDO: You are an ungrateful sell-out who I gave protection thinking you will respect me as . . .
TELLMORE: I have no intention to disrespect you but am opposed to . . .
GONDO: Opposed? Shut up before I kill you myself!Footnote 28
Tellmore and GBH do not just comment on how they have been oppressed, but also realize how they have perpetuated their own oppression. They fully acknowledge their contribution to political violence, realizing that it flourished not because Gondo forced them to do it, but rather because they allowed Gondo to use them. Tellmore tells Gondo that ‘the blood that was spilt is enough. Why are we spilling blood? To prevent people from exercising one person one vote? This was one of the principles of the struggle that spilled the blood of our fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers’.Footnote 29 Similarly, GBH tells Gondo, ‘You do not stay in this village. You only come to use us like condoms and then leave us to face the scars we caused in our community every day’. Edzai Isu and Zvido Arts, like Rooftop, staged a reality that, at the time, was still fresh in the minds of the play's audiences. Moreover, given the fact that these plays were staged in a relatively calm period of the GNU, it is particularly interesting to analyse how the state, which projected the more democratic and tolerant face of coalition, responded to both Rituals and No Voice, No Choice.
The state's response to No Voice, No Choice and Rituals
Even after the formation of the GNU, state agencies were reluctant to allow plays to tour rural and remote areas where much of the political violence had occurred. For example, the state allowed Edzai Isu to stage No Voice, No Choice in Harare, but on 22 September 2012, performances at Nyika and Jerera Growth Point in Masvingo Province were disrupted by the police. The officer commanding Masvingo Province, Superintendent J. Nyapfuri, cited security reasons.Footnote 30 However, the head of Edzai Isu, Tafadzwa Muzondo, was disturbed by the police actions as he thought that issues of healing and reconciliation contained in the play were not directed against the state. He complained that ‘this attempt to tamper with our freedom of artistic expression is worrying considering that we are bona fide Zimbabwean artists, who are trying to make a living out of their talents’.Footnote 31
The state also barred Edzai Isu and Zvido Arts from performing the play at the annual Chimanimani festival, in Manicaland Province, eastern Zimbabwe. Officials in Chimanimani felt that they had to see the play first. Festival coordinator Itai Musasiwa notified Muzondo that Sibanda, the Central Intelligence Organisation head for Chimanimani, had told him that the play could no longer be staged at all.Footnote 32 No Voice, No Choice was also banned just as it was about to be staged at the Intwasa festival in Bulawayo. In a letter dated 21 August 2012, H. J. Malaba, the secretary for the Board of Censors, wrote,
Please be advised that the Board of Censors read your play script and observed that the play is too direct and people can easily read into the insinuation of the words and messages and associate them with certain individuals and institutions and the vulgar and obscene language used. The play is inciteful and against the spirit of national healing and reconciliation. The board therefore recommended that the play be banned and prohibited.Footnote 33
It is critical to observe that during the GNU, the state had to prove that its actions were sanctioned by the law. With the exception of Super Patriots and Morons, prior to GNU, the state would deploy its repressive apparatus without citing any legislation. The banning of No Voice, No Choice is one of a few instances in which the Censorship Act was applied and the state made an effort to explain why the play was banned.
The foregoing argument is also reinforced by the experiences of Rooftop Promotions when they went on tour with Rituals, which had run uninterrupted at Theatre in the Park. Rooftop artists and their driver were arrested on 5 January 2011 at Nhedziwa Growth Point in Chimanimani, Manicaland Province, and were detained at Cashel Valley Police Station. The police accused them of unlawfully holding a public performance reminiscent of the political disturbances of June 2008, which incited the affected members of the public to revive their differences.Footnote 34
As in the case of No Voice, No Choice, under the GNU, the police had to find specific violations of the law – in this case, sections of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act – in order to make an arrest. This was in contrast with what happened during the crisis period, where most productions were disrupted and stopped without any legislative instruments being invoked. However, the fact that the police and state used some legislation to arrest and ban artists indicated disparities between the law and democratic reform in the GNU era. Daves Guzha has pointed out this anomaly:
It is sad that our artistic work in promoting national healing and reconciliation, through a play that has been seen by the Organ on National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration and has been approved by the Board of Censors, is being thwarted like this.Footnote 35
Tafadzwa Muzondo made a similar remark after the state barred his play from the Chimanimani festival:
It's unfortunate when certain authorities do not understand that as artists our aim is to promote community peace building, healing and reconciliation, which is in sync with the festival theme for this year ‘One Love One Nation-Peace’ and is also promoting objectives of the organ on National Healing Reconciliation and Integration, which falls under the Office of the President and Cabinet.Footnote 36
Thus reconciliatory protest theatre revealed the relevance of protest theatre in post-crisis Zimbabwe and the intolerance of the state to dissent and artistic freedom in Zimbabwe.
Conclusion
Protest theatre remains a viable avenue of articulating citizens’ rights in Zimbabwe. Indeed there is a still a wide gap between legislative reform and the political will to grant citizens’ rights, as enshrined in Zimbabwe's constitution. There is still much potential for protest theatre, and now that Zimbabwe is no longer under a coalition government and livelihoods continue to deteriorate, protest theatre is expected to gain even more momentum. With the construction of a new Theatre in the Park, there is the promise of more activity in political activism by means of theatre. The arrest of Silvanos Mudzvova after his performance on parliament grounds of his play Missing Diamonds: I Want My Share in April 2016 heralded the dawn of another chapter. The play was a protest against the looting of Zimbabwe's diamonds by local politicians and their Chinese associates. In this vein, and for troubling reasons, the future of protest theatre in Zimbabwe remains bright.
