The Sunday News
Raisedon Baya
I WRITE this article with some kind of uneasiness gnawing at my heart as I know the article might unintentionally perpetuate racial stereotyping against my people.
But sometimes truth, no matter how painful it is, must be said. This is the stereotype: Black people hate writing and keeping records. They don’t see value in keeping records. But let me digress a bit. During the first week of this month I literally spent six days at Bulawayo Theatre running the Live Literature Festival which was attended by schools from as far as Hwange, West Nicholson, Plumtree and Kwekwe.
The festival keeps growing and attracting new audiences.
Before I get into talking about keeping records and consequently recording history let me just say that Bulawayo Theatre is one of the best kept venues in the city. In terms of theatre it is the best theatre venue in Bulawayo and the region. The theatre seats are still comfortable, intact, the stage is still as it was years back, and the changing rooms still of international standards. A big thumbs-up to the administrators for maintaining the place — other theatres in other cities have been taken over by churches and now look dilapidated.
While in the lighting box at Bulawayo Theatre one could not ignore the posters of previous shows plastered all over the black walls. The posters date way back to pre-independence. Alladin, Impotence of Being Enerst, Lion King, Oliver Twist, Twelfth Night, and many others. All white produced shows. If one looks around the whole theatre one will be mistaken to think the theatre has never hosted a black produced show before. If one travels to other theatres in the country — Reps Theatre in Harare, Courtald Theatre in Mutare, and Charles Austin Theatre in Masvingo, one will encounter similar posters telling one the shows that have been hosted by these theatres before. But rarely will you see a black production on the walls.
Honestly, I don’t think this is deliberate or racial. I have personally put up shows at Bulawayo Theatre, Charles Austin in Masvingo, Courtald Theatre in Mutare but have never asked that our posters be put on the walls for history or just as a statement that we performed there.
I could be wrong but Nansi Le Ndoda by Cont Mhlanga and Amakhosi Theatre was the first black play to be showcased at Bulawayo Theatre. But that story is not on the walls at the theatre. There is not even a poster of the historical play. The same play broke barriers when it was entered into the then NTO Winter Festival and scooped all awards and opened doors for black actors and their producers to bring and perform their own shows in these former whites only theatre clubs. There are also other iconic productions by blacks that have been hosted by Bulawayo Theatre after independence — Zambezi Express, Witnesses & Victims, Tellers, The Trials of Brother Jero, The Good President, The Gospel of Othello, The Wish List, and many others. Putting posters on the walls might look trivial to many but the simple posters can actually be footprints of history — a history about theatre and a reminder of the great Zimbabwean stories told on stage so far.
Frankly, the absence of posters about black people’s theatre on the theatre walls is representative of the absence of black theatre footprints. It’s like our theatre does not exist or only exists in the townships. Even in the townships — there is no old poster or picture in any of the venues we have performed our stories. We don’t seem to care much about keeping records and in the process recording our own history. We need the footprints to be everywhere where our theatre goes. Everywhere where our stories are told. We need to keep records, especially of the good theatre that this city and its artistes continue to produce.
So this coming Friday Khuliyo clashes with Babongile Sikhonjwa on stage in what both are calling a no-holds barred fight — each trying to prove he can sing better than the other. I have heard of beefs before; of artistes fighting each other on social media to create hype around their projects or because they truly hate each other.
Khuliyo’s fight with Sikhonjwa started as a joke and developed into a really mud-slinging match. I first saw it on Facebook, then on Twitter and now I am eagerly waiting for the two to square up on stage. Catch their fight at Bulawayo Theatre this Friday.
