An Inquiry into the Sense of Drama: Observations on Heroic
                 Recitations and The Contest by M. Rugyendo
E. Chambulikazi*
      Drama, like so many art forms which are derived from social practice, has
controversial. concepts. A number of such concepts have been advanced, among them
Aristotle's theory of drama as action, the medieval passion drama, the epic drama and the
Brechtian theory of conflict. Drama in Africa, especially the type tailored close to the modes
inherited from .western theatre, has inherited similar theoretical controversies. It is my
intention to examine the sense of drama in one African play that arou~ed a storm of
controversy when it was performed in ErJangen, West Germany, in 1980, during a festival
called FACES OF THE THIRD WORLD.'
       The Contest, a play originally written by Mukotani Rugyendo and later adapted and
called Chuano by Paukwa Theatre Association, was the Association's entry at two festivals in
 Erlangen, West Germany in 1972.' Chuano, a play based 01, heroic recitation~, an artistic
expression prevalent amont the people inhabiting mostly the interlacustrine area, received
col1troversial reviews. Different newspapers and critics representing varying political views
 reviewed the play with prejudicial preference. However, the fundamental issue that appeared
 in almost all reviews was the question of the drama of the play. Some audiences appear not to
 have seen the dramatic action of the play, its dramatic collision and its tension. It is this
 "apparent absence" of drama in Chuano that will be discussed.
       To understand the drama in the play, we first need to understand the concept of drama
 itself. The paper starts by discussing this concept together with its historical links to the
 heroic recitations, then deals with drama and The COlltl'st in relation to heroic recitations,
 and concludes with a short remark 011 the work of Paukwa in adapting The Contest into
 C"huano.
      Drama. as artistic portrayal. is understood at two complimentary levels: an abstract level
.and an e:npirical level. When these two levels are reduced to the barest minimum, the
 complex concept of drama, to start with, refers to collision. Collision is at the core of drama,
 and conflIct is the form it takes. This understanding of drama as collision goes beyond what
  other thinkers have defined as drama.! It is not based on an analysis of definitions as
  proposed by anyone thinker, it is based on the historical development of society, such
  development being the source of drama.
  -,T'"".--------,- ...                                _
  'ASSIstant Lecturer. Department  of An. Musie and Theatre. University of Oar e, Salaam.
                                                 40


Roots of Drama
      The abstract concept of drama as collision is realised in definite forms according to the
various modes of prodll':tion and the social relations pertaining to those modes. The
relationship between drama and epoch is, ther"fore, causal, or structural.4
      The simplest form of "oppositional relationship" (i.e. pertaining to conflict) that society
through man confronts, is the 'man vs. nature' relationship. This relationship is the
manifestation of man's struggle to survive.' Man appropriated" food and thereby ensured
not only his existence but also that of his progeny. Man's confrontation with nature, for
 instance, provided features relevant to that particular mode of existence, some of which are:
 individuals being united by some type of kinship or familial bond, tribe or land; man directly
 appropriating products from the land (mental and physical activity being unseparated as
 yet); and 'man hunting and/or scraping a living out of the land and its plants.
       This fundamental and primeval collision in return characterised man's forms of
 thinking.' Parallel to these features, we find concrete forms of social expression of this Jife in
 a number of :omplex rituals and cults. Let us take the example of a hunting society. To this
society, meam of production are evidently natural, e.g. rivers, seas, forests, groves, etc. Man,
 at this time, is a "victim of nature because a situation has noi developed in which he ('Iln
und"rstand the obl"ctive laws "I natur" and harness them to hISown b"nctit. On the contrary
he develops formalist attitudes towards cha1lges of all f?henomena. an outlook summed up
as "world order (being) a ret1e"tion of social order. '" The rituals and cults express this view
with enactments ti' king the form of natural relationships, and the forms of consciousness and
idelog) hel'~g p,'stuLtLd bv th" 1I1llkrstanding of ,,,aIit). Therefor", in th" process of food
production, cults and ritllals w"re invok"d since they "solved" this contradiction in favour
of man, Totemism, to take an example, origmated in the quest to multiply food supply; so, as
a ritual, it was done at the opening of the breeding season, The ceremony was designed to
represent dramatically the growth of the totem if it was a plant or, if it WllS an animal. its
 distinctive habits movement and cries..." These social forms were an essential element in
food production, They were based on the relationship of an individual to nature and to the
horde, or human family, as social unit. Since these social forms and social relationships were
pre-conditions of that mode of production, they are justifiably referred to as production
rdations, III Evident too, is the f->':tthat in this era It is not possible to separate social relations
from relations of production; these are two distinct categories with a structural relationship.
Dances of food multiplication and fertility, mimicry, psychic immersions, etc, were not only
relations of production, relatively conditioning production, but were also, an expression of
that daily struggle, the daily collision. This was a major contradiction that t.lan dealt with,
mediated by the elements discussed above,
      The other 'collisional relationship' that man had to contend with was his fellow man,
"Man enters into definite relations which are independent of their wilL,," says Marx.11 At
the gathering and hunting stage, man lived in hordes, or nomadic bands. Amidst a hostile
environment of which man was by all means a victim, the only reliable source of social
affirmation was his fellow man, Since an individual was not capable of surviving ex'-cpt as .'
mcmber of a family, a powerful primcval social relaiion,'ilis only natural that this social unit
defended itself against aggressors. The nature of confrontatIOn at this carly stage can best be
~xplained as non-antagonistic       in so far as cruCla; social movements were concerned.
Divergence in interests came about as a resuh                   : social collisions which were ftOt
predti:termined in a largely homogenous society, These situations were not based,on a
perm;mcnt social praxis, Aga~n,' kinship relations subjected the individual to various for~s
                                                   41


of familial loyalties, S9 much so that antagonism and its resolution as feature, arising out ~f
that social practice, were unnecessary. The emergence of classes, however, undermmed thIs
base. Antagonism came about with the owning of property. This was prcx:eded by the
differentiation of productive activities and therefore more products that were dlsp~s~ble.As
Terray writes, "divergent and even antagonistic interests appeared                   regumng t~e
estabiishment of rules and the introduction of arbitrators."12 Prior to classes, morahty
solved contradictions and pre-empted their appearance. In a class society, morality as a
principal way of resolving contradictions became largely ineffectual. Classes, a priOri, refer
to interests particular to those classes and since those interests are incompatible, the defence
of interests becomeslparamount.Thesedefences         arepart and parcel of those interests; they are
a central feature of classes, and collisioliS therefore are impossible to avoid.
       We find, again, different social forms that related causally, or structually, to these ne.w
forms of social relationships. It is this sense of conflict that is of interest to me, and that will
form the core of the next discussion.
Historical Notes On The Interlacustrine Areas (Ankole)
       Rugyendo notes that he wrote The Contest after researching among some ethnic groups
 of the interlacustrine area. The basic material for this drama is woven in a theatrical form
 currently referred to 8S "heroic recitation". The mo~: interesting concept here for our
 purposes IS heroic. which differcntiates heroic recitations from other recllallollS sllch as
 praise songs. Heroism is a historical concept and as such it can be found in definite epochs as
 the ruling idea permeates social thinking, not just the thinking of individuals. The emergence
 of heroism is tied to several factors. Heroism in society becomes a ruling idea when, to ensure
 its existence against enemies, and to defend communal or individual ownership, members of
 a soci,ety have to carry arms, or develop a war-like readiness and aggression .
   • , Heroism therefore emerged as a ruling idea w'hen man had to win in the absence of
modern means of warfare. Defence and offence under the banner of heroism manifested
itself in a new form during the feudal era when the landed gentry had to carry arms and
defend themselves against classes that threatened their property, virtues and members of
tlJeir class. 13 As a ruling idea, then, heroism becomes a total phenomenon. It manifests itself
not only through external action, but also through strong spiritual virtues deeply instilled in
the ega, tlie I. In Africa, the Masai and the Bahima strve as examples of societies for both
typ"~ of heroism.
       To understand the cultural history of the interlacustrine area, it is necessary to go back
five centuries to when the Bahima (singular Muhima), a pastoralist ethnic group, migrated
south into the interlacustrine area and superimposed th~mselves 00 the peasantry, the B~iru
(singular Mwiru). The Bahima and the Banyankole were constantly engaged in wars over
grazing lands. However, a process of assimilation occurred between the Bahima and the
Bairu, based on cattle ownership. A Mwiru who had distinguished himself in battle could be
given ~ Muhima wife and cattle. Cows were a factor in reproduction of more cattle, so
sometImes bulls would be given as rewards, in which case the recipient could not increase his
cattle numbers. Therefore a Muhima could be poor and a Mwiru could become a Muhima.
Distinction became a matter of class, not caste.14
       It i~ evident that in a society 'Yhere wars were the principal means of defence and
eco~?mlc gr?~th,_ values like ~hivalry or herQism were held in pre-eminence. Wars were
~1 ..tl~l. achons as they contmually strengthened allegiance, economic dominance and
JUrisdlcbon over other peoples. Heroism as a vitue pervaded the whole social fabric. 'Wars
because a personal test of allegiance to the king, and in subsequent years when the feuda
                                                  42


   of production changed, when the basis for the war era was superceded, heroic inspiration
   came from, and was strengthened by, the image of military confrontations and a mere scuffle
  was recited as a mighty .war.
        It is this historical reality, in the ultimate sense, that provided fertiIe' ground for the
  growth of recitations as an artistic expression and elevated the ego to heroic fantl!3ies,
  matching only the heroic spirit of the area.
  The Contest and Tile Roots of Its Drama
         As mentioned earlier, drama entails the conflict of opposing forces. This conflict,
  though manifested in a persollal way in recitatf~ns, must be rooted in a social movement.l;
  Movement in this case provides the base for the individual will, and interacts with it in the
  dramatic quest for its resolution.
        Earlier, we saw that the aristocratic Bahima were in an antagonistic contradiction with
  the Bairu and Banyankole, the former as their subjects, the latter in provincial wars.to raid
  cattle and obtain grazing land. The society was irrevocably maturing into a feudal system,
 strengthening the reiationship of the king and the land,.entrenching the division between
 mental (courtly) and manual labourers and the basic tenets ofioyalty and allegiance. Within
this historicai perspectiv~ it is not hard to find the roots of antagonistic contradictions, But
 Interest here is the double reality, i.e. history and its artistic reflection, the drama;that is
 based on similar historical realities. Allegiance and loyalty were compulsory values,
 insubordination being cruelly suppressed, at one time by the king's freestandi~g army, or at
 another time by fellow class allies. But here, the mode of resolving the drama grc:wout of the
 opposing objective movement, contrary to              The Contest which refuses to acceot diree:
 collision that would otherwise have involved the collision of the heroes. I. The drama in The
 Contest turns and twists leaving traces of competition rather than collision.
        Rugyendo wrote this play, and based it on a realistic model of the recitation spectacle,
 but has not based it in the historicity. In attempting to create a collision of the heroes, he ha&
 taken upon himself the power to tailor the resolution of this confrontation by putting it in the
 audience. Here again, we find that there is a parallel model of,audience participation both in
 the reality of the heroic recitation in the society and in the reality of the play. The audience
 plays the arbiter's role. The heroes cannot confront ca.::h other and ,,,typify the objective
contlict of the two colliding movements, lather illl:Y address themsdves to the alJlJience, who
accept or reject their heroic deeds. It would seem, therefore, that it is this reciter/people or
actor/audience dialectic that is the kernel of the problem of dramatic sense, because in the
 eventual analysis it comes between the direct collision of the two characters.
        The mode of solving a contradiction is a necessary consequence of the mode that created
that contradiction. This causal relationship manifests itself in a progressi\"e nature, so that
finally the resolution qualitatively supercedes the original contradiction. Now, when we
survey societies that did not have antagonistic relationships, we find that familial bonds,
allegiance and blood relationships are dominant in holding the community together. These
social relations crea'ted an affinity of values, or an ideological unity. This homogeneity is a
result of the commonness of the struggle against one enemy, so that at the level of id~olog!c;,!
awareness interests have not yet diverged and created antagonistic contradictions. This is the
era when morality appealed to individual conscience and polarised the reality along a simple
axis of good/bad, brave/cowardly, cunning/foulisl;. Morality was not only a way to solve
COntradictions, it also pre-empted similar situaticn
     'FiJrtbermore", .in terms of daily affairs, there was no imposition of values and ideology
from ruling'classes. Hierarchy and social authority were derived from patriarchal allegiance,
                                                  -43.


 or from the strong hand of tradition. Here we find that there was a broad social participation,
 which is a manifestation of the democratic will of the people with more or less equal rights.
 Equally, in storytelling or recitation, audience participation is theoretically designed to
 assert the reality of the art form. Story tellers and reciters have no base in themselves or
 elsewhere from which to pass their ideas on to others. They can excel in the manner of
 presenting their art forms, but they still remain the voice of the people themselves—the VOX
 POPULI. Audience participation, therefore, develops out of a pattern founded on the same
 ideoldgical and artistic source for participation. It fails to grasp the social and artistic process
that is crucial in understanding the concept of drama and participation, since familiarity of
values does not exclude vicarious experience which does not have to be rooted in the same
awareness.
      Neither does audience participation here find explanation in the theory of play.17 Play,
in artistic engagements only, does not liberate the inhibited audience of adults. Aesthetic
enjoyment does not provide enough push for the audience to participate with abandon. At
most, it allows people to laugh from a distance, from a position of people alienated from
their own lives, people who now lack the honest and internalised will to share in a creative
moment.
     Audience participation drastically changes its role in class society. An incompatibility of
interests, and a sense of class survival reject morality and broad social participation. Class
society holds antagonistic contradictions in its very womb and, therefore, brings about a
totally new actor/audience dimension. Antagonism grows out of the womb of the ownership
of the means of production, ownership of labour power, and the appropriation of the
products. Herein arises the question of basic class interests and the defence of such interests,
a question which involves both persuasive and coercive means, the latter attesting to the
forceful nature of the collisions. It is not within the confines of this paper to discuss
domination, but it is relevant to add here that art has been used as a means of domination, by
subtly exploiting the aesthetic factor. Heroic recitations offer ample evidence of this use of
art for domestication, as reciters take pride in being subjects to a king, strutting for
oppressing women and killing enemies who are in some cases allies.18 In these heroic
recitations, as far as audience participation is concerned, in relation to the employment of art
for domestication, we witness an artistic process that has successfully taken over the role of
audience participation, and which, through systematic indoctrination and related social
processes (kinship, allegiance, etc.), ha^s continually created false consciousness. The
audience, in participating in the recitations, is duped into participating in their own
oppression. Exploitation, to ensure survival, is subtle and develops the element of play to
ensure domestication of people and, therefore, continued submission and allegiance. This is
the reality of heroic recitation as found in a normal spectacle. The material of recitations
speaks of this systematic process of creating false consciousness.
      Contrary to this reality of creating a false consciousness through aesthetics, Rugyendo
has created an opposite tendency. He has given the audience a decisive, progressive role in his
drama. He has, therefore, developed the role of participants to the extent of determining the
direction of the heroes' collisions. Drama in The Contest is not, therefore, confined to
conflict as portrayed in modern European Dxama, in spite of the fact that objectively we have
 two movement colliding, principally because of the audience factor. The drama is not
locked in four walls, nor is it journalistic; instead it employs dramatic poetry. This drama is,
in a more important way, not confined to the will of two people, and therefore does not
develop into a conflagration. Here the dramatic is merely in relation to the audience, since all.
                                               44


 drama is resolved through the audience. This is a meeting point for the two models in tMt
 both The Contest. and the heroic recitations mak~ the audience a crucial arbiter without
 whom the drama cannot be resolved.
       This points to the fact that audience participation has become a remnant of a once
 powerful artistic and social tendency that united the reciter with the community, who~e base
was democratic and creative participation. The actual roots of audience participation have
 already passed away, and reality today scares audience participation. The scary element is
 best seen when Rugyendo induces socialist victory by using the audience. This induction
 concurs, however, with historical reality, i.e. the destiny of the working class as exemplified
 by the events of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and after. So reality has it right, both
 without and within the play.
       Nevertheless, one feels that the artistic logic has been imposed on the audience. The
audience is too simplistic in its thinking. It associates, for example, mechanised farming with
capitalism, which does not at all have to be. Socialist planning also places high the question
 of agricultural transformation since mechanised farming ensures higher productivity. The
 audience sees things in black and white, almost reminiscent of the era of morality, so that to
 those who have found an empty. pot at the end of the "socialist" rainbow, this
 argument will fall on deaf ears. Of course, the artistic reality allows audience participation
 in spite of all that has been said so far about its implications, but in practice the
 abdiences in Dar es Salaam and in West Germany were restive. A writer puts wordsjntothe
 mouth of the audience easily, but for a director it is less easy. This elements, therefore,
 questions the compatibility of artistic logic in the play and its counterpart in traditio~al
 heroic poetry ...Today we witness working classes actively taking it upon themse.lves'to
 confront .oppre~ion and seek solutions to contradictions. Reality today refuses to Involve
 the audience in a reality they know to belong to their oppressors.
       Play and ideological affinity are in open conflict with sO,cial contradictions. and,
lherefore, audiente partiCipation sounds farcical. The material ground' of audience
participation would require a play to be composed by those very people, dealing with their
far and immediate issues, a real VOX POPULI-a               play matured through their.experience.
 Chuano: An Adaptation Qf 'The Contest'
        The PAUKWA THEATRE ASSOCIATION adaption of The COlltest'Slfpports this
  analysis. The play is too simplistic. The two her9~,",who are the main characters, present
  themselves as unrealistic types. Theyengendefattributes            that are not organic, and cannot
  realistically react to situations. Similarly, the final arbitration that makes the hero of socialist
  ideology win, is subjective and appears from a dramatic development that does not justify the
  victory although, as mentioned above, the destiny of the working class supports the victory
  in The Contest.
        The drama was therefore given more twists and turns. The characters were humanised.
  The skeleton idea of the "conflict" of the heroes was vested in a festival. The drummer
  became the Master of Ceremonies, and instead of one drummer there were two. They
  introduced the recitation by a "mini-recitation" of a dance-competetion, musical rhyth.ns,
  drum dialogues and proverbs. To each hero was attached several chorus girls who cheered
  and encouraged the reciter, PAUKWA added a thiJ:d hero, who was dressed in a suit and
  played a guitar. He challenged both heroes as being quite idealistic and he showered praises
  on money and what it could accomplish ..
        The .Master . of Ceremonies went out into the audience to animate response. Also, as
  lJOinted out. earlier, direct conflict I betweenJ~eroes was absent and the audience became the
                                                 -45


arbiter, with the result that PAJlK-WA created moments of direct confrontation. These
moments were actually out\5fthe general form of Chuano. Heroes used songs as a means of
conflict and by singing simultaneously, created disharmony, typical of a fight. Finally, stick
fighting, a tradional and famous game was added. This fight was proposed by two elders
(again an addition by P AUKW A) who thought it the only decisive t~t for the two heroes. In
this fight that had elements offairness, the hero who supported capitalist development lost.
        In Oar es Salaam, Chuano was received as a festival, though audience participation was
not outstanding. In Germany, the audtetrreremained largely-passiVe, anff'bl~mk at timl<~.At
certain moments there seemed to be no communication whatsoever. To mduce audIence
participation is to admit that there exists a gap between the audience and the play. The play
wanted the audience to act as arbiters in the confrontantion of the heroes. The basis for this
acting, however, was a past reality.
         Audience participation of the past does not hold a similar role today. Our reality holds
 that audience participation is too simplistic in a form such as het:oic recitation in The Contest.
The play, therefore, succeeded in being a big theatrical festival even after the adaptation.
 Drama hid itself in new songs, dramatic dances, poetry. stick fights etc. There is no doubt
 that the adaptation sharpened the tension. However, the efforts to sharpen the play did not
 touch its fundamental nature. They ended up creating a mixture of dramas, that are
 otherwise impossible to meet, and the show remained exciting but nevertheless quite
 <;ontroversial.
                                            Notes aJld References
     1. Paukwa Theatre Association Archives. The group participated in Gesichte der Dritten Welt and
      Volktlllle Festivals.
  2. I will Use both titles, ChuaJlO and The Contest, interchangeably since the dramatic movement in
      both 'Versions runs a1onl! similar lines.
  3. A lengthy discussion is avoided here       so, as will be shown later, the basis of drama is social
      movement and, therefore, is the ultimate determinant of artistic portrayal.
  4. The danger has always been to be mechanistic and simplislic by assuming a rigid
      ~selsuperstr:ucture      determination - whereas reality refuses this simplistic reductionism. There
      IS a need to dIscover structural links betWeen base and superstructure,     since drama displays both
      types of relationships.
  S. This struggle to survive was at the centre of' preservatioD and llnnihilation.     If man did not struggle
      to live he faced annihilation, the opposite assured him sustained existence.
  6. Appropriation here does not relate to simple appropriation but .rather to a general mode. E.
      Terray, Marxism aJld "Primitive Societies", Modem Reader, 1972, p. 99.
  7. G. Thomson, Studies in Ancient Greek Society, London, Lawrence & Wishart, 1961, Chapter 1.
  8. Ibid, p. 40.
  9. G. Thomson, Aescbylus an~ Athens, !-ondon, Lawrence & Wishart, 1973, p. 38.
10. D. Sayer, "Method and ,Dogma in Historic'iil Materialism," Mimeo, University of Dar es Salaam.
II, K. ~rx, Preface to "A Contribution to the Critique of PolitiCal Economy, Moscow, Progress,
      Publishers, 1970.
12. E. Terray, opt cit., p. 61.
13. E. Kamenka, R.S. Neale, E. Arnold (Eds.). Feudalism. Capitalism and Beyond, p. 33.
 14. H.F. Morns, Heroic Recitations of the Bahlma, Oxford University Press, 1964, Chapter 1.
 IS. Movement here .refers t~ a social,historical tendency of particular social classes vis-a-vis other
       classes at a particular time.
 16.  :fhe  Contest: In this play, two "eroes are reciting. competitively in an attempt to win the hand of a
     -vllla$~ ?elle, Maendeleo, ID marriage. The winner is acclaimed by popular VOIP.
 17. J. HUlzmga, Homo Ludens - Translated by R.F.C. Hdlf London:
       1949.      "         ..                                       '         ,
                                                        46


18. T. Kaijage, "The Kilenzi Epic", Third Yeu Literarure Special Study, Mimeo, University of Dar
    es Salaam, 1979.
    This the ugh is in no way to say that all heroic recitations were used to subdue people. There is a
    remarkable sense of protest in the heroic recitations. The protest in the recitations, though, used
    definite forms (irony and satire are two of the most commun) to register the message. Heroic
    recitations, therefore, were not the monopoly of the ruling classes, but served the interests of the
    oppressed groups as well. However, this paper is confined to the recitations of domesticated
     people. in order to show clearly how social classes addressed themsdvcs to such recitations.
     both in the traditional Bahima community. and that of today. for which Rugyendo wrote his
     play. (See also note 15).
                                                 . 47.