The State of the Theatre in RhodesiaC. J. WorthamRhodesia has no full-time professional companyof actors. There is one semi-professional group,Ken Marshall Productions, and the SalisburyRepertory Players have the services of a profes-sional Director of Productions, Mr. AdrianStanley. For the rest, stage drama is kept alive byamateur societies.Almost all the societies which produce plays forthe public are members of the Association ofRhodesian Theatrical Societies. The Association(hereafter referred to as ARTS) is, in effect, thegoverning body for theatre in Rhodesia and assuch offers a number of services for the benefit ofmember societies. Every year it organises aRhodesian Drama Festival and engages anadjudicator, usually from Britain or South Africa,to select the best entries for presentation inrepertory fashion in one of the larger centres.Thereafter placings are given and prizes awardedfor the most notable achievements in varioustheatrical skills, ARTS also makes representationsto the Government on behalf of its members: atpresent ARTS is negotiating for dispensationfrom censorship. Through ARTS scripts areobtained and royalties paid; ARTS is the ac-credited agent of the most useful groups ofpublishers in Britain and America. For the use ofits members there is a library containg scripts ofapproximately two thousand plays. Besides thecommendable services which ARTS offers to itsmembers, it assists the National Arts Councilwhenever the latter sponsors dramatic produc-tions.At the time of writing ARTS has thirty-eightmember societies. Of these, six are in Salisbury,and three in Bulawayo. The majority of the societiesare distributed about the western sector of thecountry; only five are in centres east of Salisbury, afact which population distribution does notentirely account for.1The topics to be pursued in this article concernthe kinds of societies which have ARTS member-ship. Predominantly these societies are inde-pendent entities, i.e. they do not exist as sub-sections within sports clubs or clubs sponsoredby large commercial organisations, and have tofinance their productions out of members' sub-scriptions and profits from past productions.Membership of dramatic societies is for the mostpart confined to Europeans (although their rulesdo not often exclude non-Europeans) and audi-ences also tend to be almost entirely European.Non-Europeans do not participate to any greatextent, for a variety of reasons, political, socialand economic.Africans do participate in productions ateducational institutions, principally missionsecondary schools and teacher training collegesbut these productions are very few in number inrelation to the overall African population. To myknowledgethere is only one society run by Africanswhich is really similar in character to the Europeansocieties; this is the Wankie African Dramatic andChoral Society. Whatever the reasons for non-participation by AfricansŠthe larger Africantownships are sorely lacking in dramatic endeavourŠit seems most unfortunate that the theatreshould be fostered and patronised by a smallsection of the total population.In order to find out more about the state of the47theatre in Rhodesia I recently wrote to sevenprominent and experienced producers of drama inRhodesia. Their answers to my specific questions,which I have collated and compared, together withtheir unsolicited comments, form the substance ofwhat follows. The questions concerned the degreeof interest prevailing in the theatre here, the kindsof plays which appeal to popular taste, the futurefor serious drama and the acceptability of moderntechniques of stagecraft. Wherever possible,answers have been checked against availablestatistics, a few of which are given where they areilluminating and sufficiently accurate.Of those whose opinions were canvassed, onlytwo feel that the Rhodesian's interest in thetheatre is waning, but the other five are guardedin their optimism. Mr. John Cobb, well-known inBulawayo as a producer, says, "I do not think thatinterest in theatre has ever waned in this country.But I most certainly think that its condition isdecidedly weak."2 His view reflects the consensusof opinion. Although no question was askedabout the possibilities for professional drama here,four replies dwell on the need for professionaltheatre to add a stimulus. It is recognised that apermanent professional group would have to relyupon Government subsidy for survival, as do theprovincial Performing Arts Boards in SouthAfrica, but two alternatives are suggested: toursof Rhodesia by professional companies wouldhelp; so would the establishment of courses inSpeech and Drama in school and university. Onthe latter point Mr. Anthony Weare, Chairman ofthe Fort Victoria Drama Circle and producer ofthe winning play in the 1967 Rhodesian DramaFestival, says, "Rhodesia has a unique opportunityto create a national theatre interest in this tinyland, but this can only be done by carrying Speechand Drama and threatre training into the lives ofyoung peoplethroughtheschoolsand University."3As to the good influence of professionalism, onehas only to look at the career of Mr. Adrian Stanleyin the Salisbury Repertory Players for proof.Mr. Stanley was invited to join the staff of theRepertory Players in 1964, after the Committeeand members of the society had become des-perately worried for the future of their theatre. In1960 a profit of £1,088 had been recorded, but in1961 the profit had dwindled to half and to £232 in1962. In 1963 the downward trend continued,resulting in a profit of only £6. Then Mr. Stanleywas appointed. 1964 showed a profit of £1,208 andby the end of the following year Mr. Stanley's goodoffices had brought in a profit of over £2,812 forthe year. In 1966 the profits rose sharply to £4,790and last year (1967) a profit of more than £4,000was again achieved. On the subject of Mr. Stanley'ssuccess, Mr. Neil Jardine of Fort Victoria, whoseplay Colour The Rabbits Blue won the Caltex"Play of the Year" award in 1965, comments,"Adrian Stanley has built up a tremendousreputationŠand it's not true to argue that this restspurely on box-office flim-flam. One of his bigsuccesses in 1966 was Hamlet."6There can be no doubt that the advent of tele-vision, in November 1960 in Salisbury and June1961 in Bulawayo, did have an adverse effect onthe size of theatre audiences at first, but whethertelevision has continued to have such an effect isa moot point. Mr. Stanley contends that televisioncan help the theatre and that it has in fact done so:well-known local television personalities appearingon the stage invariably attract larger audiences;also, television can be used to publicise stageplays in the performance of excerpts. However, inRhodesia the cost of televising excerpts is toohigh in relation to financial resources and there isinsufficient technical equipment available totelevise exerpts properly.5It is difficult to tell what the future influence oftelevision is likely to be in Rhodesia as there areunknown factors. Mr. Brian Durden, Vice-Chair-man of ARTS, says that television is no longer apositive threat to the theatre because the publichas become "disenchanted with television",6 as asatisfactory alternative to live theatrical produc-tions. At this point it might be interesting tocompare theatre attendances in Salisbury withthose of Umtali, where television has not as yetarrived. In Salisbury an average of approximatelyfive per cent of the European population see eachproduction of the Repertory Players. In Umtali theproportion of playgoers is at least ten per cent.The comparison is a reasonably fair one in thatthe Umtali Players, whose attendance figures Itake, dominate theatrical activity in that town to thesame extent that the Repertory Players do inSalisbury. Perhaps television does account for thedisparity to some extent, but a number of otherpossibilities have to betaken into consideration aswell. To conjecture as to what the other factorsmight be is beyond the scope of the present study.48One rather curious fact emerges from a furthercomparison of average rates of theatre attendance:rate of attendance varies in inverse proportion topopulation! Fort Victoria, which has a Europeanpopulation only a quarter as large as Umtali's,boasts an average attendance at each productionof between 40 and 50 per cent of its Europeaninhabitants,7 Perhaps all the circumstances whichcombine to account for this inverse proportionŠone can only guess at what they may be in theabsence of a thorough sociological surveyŠalsoexplain the remarkable vitality of dramatic societiesin so many centres even smaller than Fort Victoria,It is all very well to talk of theatre attendancerates, but what kinds of plays appeal to the public?This question must always be an important one tothose who see in the theatre the expression of anart form as well as sheer entertainment. Four ofmy correspondents are decidedly gloomy aboutthe future for anything other than frothy comedyand farce. Nevertheless, as Mr. Stanley points outŠwith the authority of one who has trained inBritain and had wide experience thereŠthe situationis not peculiar to Rhodesia. He emphasises thatthe few London theatres which maintain a reper-tory of more serious drama (in which term Iinclude high comedy) can only do so becausethey have an immense population from which todraw a coterie of enthusiasts and are subsidizedby grants from the National Arts Council.Other factors contribute to the lack of interestin serious drama in Rhodesia in particular. One isthe lack of education in the drama. It is true enoughthat almost all European schoolchildren arepresented with a few serious dramatic works in thecourse of their school careers and that almostevery European secondary school, whether govern-ment-controlled or privately owned, puts on atleast one play per year, but it is quite plain thatvery little enduring interest is engendered. Drama-tic societies throughout the country complain thatvery few young people are prepared to take anactive part in drama once they have left school. Itseems that children are often taught drama withoutbeing educated to it.Because of the lack of real education in thedrama, or at least partly because of it, the publicscarcely tolerates the playwrights of earliercenturies and is simply not used toŠand does notunderstandŠthe work of the modern seriousdramatists, who require intellectual rather thanemotional involvement. Even though the play-wrights of our times have undoubtedly injectednew life into the drama overseas, very few of theirworks are performed here. And it is not true to saythat all such plays are only for the coterie. Brecht,for example, is really popular among Germanaudiences, especially in the eastern sector,almost as a playwright of the proletariat, but"Bulawayo Theatre Club's production of MotherCourage showed that people were not ready to sitobjectively as Brecht intended,"8 The same maywell be true of Salisbury: Mother Courage wasproduced by the Salisbury Repertory Players in1960 and proved to be the least successful produc-tion of the year in terms of attendance. Thefelicitously phrased comments of Mr. Jardine sumup the situation:I don't think that Pinter, Beckett, Brecht, et al.are going to get a much wider hearing than sayJackson Pollock and Salvador Dali or AlbanBerg and Nielsen have hadŠyet. The averagetheatre-goer is little different from the galleryvisitor who "knows what he likes"Šor whoacknowledges Pollock and Picasso and Klee,but hangs Degas and Renoir. These things taketime . . . Brecht's plays and their authenticproduction require cold-blooded appraisal andsome measure of intellectual involvement . . .at least. The majority of theatre-goers still wantto escape, and sit in the dark and eat popcornand identify.9Whatever the reasons for lack of interest inserious drama in present-day Rhodesia, thecurrent political situation adds to them. Mr. Durdenand Mr. Stanley speak of the similarity betweenRhodesian audiences today and those of Britainduring World War II. Mr. Durden says, "In someways the present success of light presentations inthe country had a parallel in England during theWar. By and large the theatre-going public want tobe taken out of themselves with a good laugh; theyare not interested in thinking."10 Mr. Marshall seesthe desire to escape as a more-widespreadproblem, applying to all who perceive that they live"in the shadow of the bomb"." It would be ridicu-lous to suggest that the mood of audiences inRhodesia is unique, but there are special pressureswhich do, no doubt, have a special effect.Plays like Giraudoux's The Madwoman ofChaillot, O'Neill's Desire under the Elms, Ibsen'sGhosts, and Anouilh's Poor Bitos have played to49very disappointing audiences at the Reps. Theatrein the past few years. One could have predictedthis, but Shakespeare has, by contrast, provedpopular. Shakespeare's popularity may be some-what artificial in that there are those who will go toone of his plays as a cultural obligation to whichthey feel reluctantly committed. Furthermore, theSalisbury Repertory Players usually choose forproduction a Shakespeare play which is a set textfor "0", "M", or "A" Level examinations. Never-theless, Mr. Stanley's 1966 production of Hamletin modern dress was sincerely acclaimed. HisOthello, in 1964, played to houses that were con-sistently better than average: in 1964 the averagenumber of seats sold per performance for thewhole year was approximately 41 per cent, whereasOthello averaged a 55 per cent attendance perperformance.One may well ask whether it is not the respons-ibility of well-established amateur groups withfirst-rate facilities, the Salisbury Repertory Playersand the Umtali Players immediately come to mind,to educate or re-educate audiences into an appre-ciation for drama of literary merit, but Mr. FrenchSmith, Chairman of the Umtali Players, defendsagainst this criticism:As long as we are bound to make an amateurtheatre pay its way (in the case of the Courtauldto meet its considerable overheads) we suffer inthat those who would like to see and do seriousor thought-making drama can only exist in smalltheatre-club groups accommodated in free . . .or inexpensive halls.12Mr. Weare is more optimistic:The public will generally . . . support anyentertainment which has quality and is notsufficiently esoteric to be outside its capacity forunderstanding.In drama, a play which may be a valuableintellectual exercise may not have a wide appeal. . . until a director comes along and makes itexplicit by visual or other means. As a theatreenthusiast I find myself at variance with thepurists on this point but take the view thattheatre is, or should be, primarily an emotionalexperience, and if a director succeeds in achiev-ing this he has served his playwright well.13That Mr. Weare has successfully put his theoryinto practice is indicated by the popular supportattained by his production of Rashomon, the playwhich won the 1967 Rhodesian Drama Festival. Bycontrast, the Salisbury production of the sameplay was the least successful of its year (1964).The difficulty with modern drama is quite largelyone of technique in staging plays. If there is anycharacteristic of twentieth century drama which iscommon to a high proportion of serious drama it isone of form rather than content; the characteristicI have in mind is what has been called "expres-sionism".14 Expressionism is a term which may beused broadly to include all non-realistic modes ofpresentation from impressionism to surrealism.The nineteenth century drama was, for the mostpart, bent upon realism; the aim was to create soconvincing an illusion of reality on the stage thatthe audience would forget that they were watchinga play and would instead gain the impression thatthey were watching something happening in reallife. The nineteenth century also saw the finalphase in the evolution of the stage with theproscenium arch: the apron had been progres-sively foreshortened until it had almost vanished,with the result that all the action took place behindthe proscenium. This development naturally gaverise to what is commonly termed "the fourth-wallconvention", which simply means that the stageis viewedŠfor indoor scenesŠas a room fromwhich one of the four walls has been removed sothat we can see into it. Four outdoor scenes theconvention similarly applied: one saw the rusticscene as though through a picture frameŠandwhat was inside the picture had no right to comeout of it. The players had no business to intrudephysically upon their audience.Things have changed. As I have said, the seriousdrama of this century tends to be non-realistic inits form and manner of presentation. Becausetheatres built over the last seventy-five years or solend themselves to realism the use of non-realisticdevices in them has to be very skilfully handled andone of the reasons why the serious drama of todaydoes not readily succeed is that the theatres andhalls in which it is performed are often archi-tecturally unfriendly to it. In recent years theatredesign in Britain, Europe, and America has madeallowance for expressionism, but in Rhodesia,where most of the established theatres are builton the nineteenth century principle and wherethere has been little money available in recentyears for experiments in the new, there is littleevidence of the arrival of a new form of theatricalexpression. Besides, many performances here50have to be given in multi-purpose halls belongingto schools or sports clubs. Such halls are naturallybuilt with proscenium-arch stages to allow for themost economic use of space. In some few cases,however, the proscenium arch has been made lessobtrusive (e.g. the Beit Hall at the UniversityCollege, Salisbury) or has been almost refined outof existence (e.g. the Reps. Theatre, Salisbury).Modern techniques of stagecraft have, then, tobe very carefully employed to succeed, but whatare the attitudes of Rhodesian producers toexpressionism as such? All my correspondentsagree that expressionism has its uses, but onlytwo laud it without reservations. Their reservationsseem to be centred upon their feeling for what aRhodesian audience will accept rather than uponany conservatism in themselves. A sample opinion:If Rhodesian audiences are to be singled out, Ithink they might reject a form of expressionismwhich allowed them to be continuously con-scious of the fact that they . . . were real life,watching something that wasn't. The directormust persuade his audience to transport itselfimaginatively.15Mr. Cobb, whose support for expressionism iswhole-hearted, places the responsibility for thelack of modern expressionist drama on the Rho-desian stage squarely upon the producers. Hesays:The introduction of expressionistic theatre hasbeen this century's greatest contribution to theMuse. Unhappily, we are afraid of it, or are in-sufficiently experienced to present it correctly toan audience and only succeed in embarrassingthem. The actor becomes obviously conscious ofhis audience and the director is still blinded bythe "fourth wall" (the reason why so many pro-ductions just do not penetrate beyond the firstrow).'6Of all the sub-species of the avant-garde the"theatre of the absurd" is the most famous and hasthe closest associations with expressionism. Infact the theatre of the absurd depends on expres-sionism for its existence. Perhaps one of thereasons why Rhodesian producers treat expres-sionism with suspicion is that they realise that thetheatre of the absurd was a passing phase, onewhich produced some interesting work, but aphase nevertheless. Reviewing the drama of thelast twenty years, Mr. Stanley puts the matter incontext:The absurd was a necessary phase, but it wasexperimental and is now finished. Its influenceshows in the best of the most recent writers.The way in which Robert Bolt uses the figure ofThe Common Man in the stage version of A Manfor All Seasons shows the influence of experi-mental expressionism, though it would probablybe more true to say that Bolt was more immedi-ately influenced by Brecht than by the absurd.17Expressionist devices have led to experiments innew ways of staging plays, and some old wayshave been revived too. Perhaps the most signifi-cant of the innovations of our time are theatre inthe round, open stage productions, and intimatetheatre. What the first twoŠand sometimes thethirdŠhave in common is that they do not try topreserve any illusion of reality. Theatre in theround goes quite the other way, indeed: the stageis in the middle and the spectators all around itcan see across it to the watching faces oppositethem.Open stage productions do away with the pro-scenium arch, though without necessarily bringingactors and audience physically closer. What theopen stage does do is to break down the barrierbetween them. As Professor Richard Southernhas said, "The cardinal problem about the pro-scenium arch is that it creates a line.'"8 The openstage removes the line.The intimate theatre also strives to bring actorsand audience into closer mental contact, but doesso by more physical means. The auditorium ismuch smaller than in most conventional theatres,and often holds no more than fifty people. Anatmosphere of intimacy is created, although theproscenium is not always abolished. In effect theproscenium often disappears because the stagemay well be as wide as the little auditorium and ashigh.I asked my correspondents to give their views onthe three unconventional techniques of stagingjust mentioned. The consensus was in favour ofall three. Mr. Stanley says that his London pro-duction in the round of Burning Bright was wellreceived and that the more plays he saw in theround the more surprised he was at the differenttypes of theatre which work in this medium.19Mr. Jardine says, "There's been too little of itdone to pass a valuable opinion, but I did see TheTrial of Mary Dugan in the round a few years ago51with considerable box-office success in Salis-bury."20Very recently I saw the Salisbury RepertoryPlayers' production of Death of a Salesman. Theplay demands an expressionistic set and I waspleased to see how much use Mr. Stanley made ofthe wide apron in the Reps. Theatre; he gave theplay the freedom which only the open stage allowsand thus avoided embarrassing the audience. Theset would have seemed absurd had the audiencebeen given any reminder of the presence of theproscenium and the realistic box set which con-ventionally goes with it.After seeing so fine a production as Mr. Stanley'sDeath of a Salesman one feels that one needscarcely ask oneself whether there is a brightfuture for the theatre in Rhodesia. Furthermore,the quite astonishing number of dramatic societiesin existence indicates that interest in the theatre isvery much alive, but from all sectors of the countrycomes the same warning: there is a dearth ofyoung actors and actresses.2' It is my ownexperience that all too often our audiences areembarrassed out of all enjoyment at the sight of amiddle-aged woman playing a coy maiden or of aman in his forties trying to recreate the part of ayoung swain from dimming memories of departedyouth. Behind this rather obvious need for youthlies a more worrying danger, the danger thatdramatic societies will become forever petrified inthe mental attitudes of a passing generation.Mr. French Smith's cri de coeur expresses thesituation succinctly: "We are hidebound with ageand convention."22What overall impression does one gain of thestate of the theatre in Rhodesia? The theatre isundoubtedly holding its own here as a means ofentertainment for the European population, but itis equally obvious that much of the entertainmentoffered is of a rather superficial kind. That seriousdrama is sometimes successful here (if we judgesuccess by attendance rates) is at least a hopefulsign for the future. Resistance to the expressionismwhich is characteristic of so much modern seriousdrama is not formidable and should fade in time ifrecent work is more regularly performed. Tours byprofessional companies could, until we havesufficient resources to establish our own Perform-ing Arts Council, fulfil the important doublefunction of "educating" the adult public andencouraging the young.Nevertheless, the greatest single handicap tothe advancement of serious drama remains: theEuropean population is too small to sustain dramaof quality. As it is we are rather cut off from thecultural main stream of Western Europe andAmerica and so we cannot reasonably expect ahigher proportion of what European population wehave to take an interest than does in Britain. Inother words, while the theatre in Britain appeals toa minority, here that like-minded minority iscontained within another minority. If widespreadAfrican support could be enlisted the problem ofnumbers might well be solved. The African peoplesof Rhodesia have their own drama in embryo inthe antiphonal chihwerure or threshing-song andwith sensible encouragement this oral traditioncould be subsumed into the world's dramaticliterature23. The threshing-songs are rich insubject-matter and theme and could benefit fromthe structural qualities which are the heritage ofwestern traditions. After all, it was the combina-tion of a lively native tradition with classical formswhich moulded the great drama of the Renaissance.REFERENCES1. Information about ARTS, from an interview with Brian Durden on 15th February, 1968.2. Letter from John Cobb, 23rd January, 1968.3. Letter from Anthony Weare, 20th February, 1968.4. Letter from Neil Jardine, 17th January, 1968.5. Interview with Adrian Stanley, 6th February, 1968.6. Letter from Brian Durden, 14th February, 1968.7. Figures for Fort Victoria obtained from letters from Neil Jardine and Anthony Weare. Figures for Salisbury andUmtali calculated myself from available attendance records and population figures.8. A. Weare, loc. cit.9. N. Jardine, loc. cit.10. B. Durden, loc. cit.11. Letter from Ken Marshall, 21st February, 1968.12. Letter from Geoffrey French Smith, 7th February, 1968.13. A. Weare, loc. cit.14. John Gassner, Form and Idea in Modern Theatre (New York: The Dryden Press, 1956), passim.15. A. Weare, loc. cit.5216. J. Cobb, loc. cit.17. Interview with Adrian Stanley, 6th February, 1968.18. Richard Souther, The Seven Ages of the Theatre (2nd edn.; London: Faber & Faber, 1964), p. 275.19. Interview with Adrian Stanley, 6th February, 1968.20. N. Jardine, loc. cit.21. J. Cobb, loc. cit; G. French Smith, loc. cit.; K. Marshall, loc. cit.; A. Weare, loc. cit.22. G. French Smith, loc. cit.23. Interview with Mr. G. P. Kahari, Dept. of African Languages U. C. Ft.53