Robert Mshengu Kavanagh

Selected Plays Vol.2 Robert Mshengu Kavanagh

SELECTED PLAYS is a collection of plays with a difference. It features the work of South African theatre practitioner, arts educationist, cultural activist and academic, Robert Mshengu Kavanagh, in South Africa, England, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. However, as Kavanagh himself makes clear, he did not single-handedly write a single one of them. They are all plays in which he worked with actors or other writers in a playmaking process which he led and which produced a performance which he directed and sometimes acted in. The first in the series featured the work of Workshop '71 in South Africa in the 1970s. This, the second volume, features the political theatre of the socialist Frontline theatre group, Zambuko/ Izibuko in the 1980s and early 90s in Zimbabwe, a the period that followed the coming of independence to Zimbabwe and the intensification in South Africa and the Southern African region of the struggle against apartheid. It was a highly ideological and militant phase in the region's history. The plays of Zambuko/Izibuko reflect this. It's name, in Shona and Ndebele, means 'river-crossing', the crossing from the colonial, racist, exploitative society of the past into a new just and free society. Zambuko/Izibuko was based at the University of Zimbabwe and its membership included cultural activists from various walks of life, all of whom were deeply political and committed to the struggle for social justice. This volume includes four full-length plays, 'Katshaa! - the Sound of the AK' [an anti-apartheid agit-prop piece], 'Samora Continua' [on the history of Mozambique and its struggle for a new society], 'Mandela, the Spirit of No Surrender' [how Mandela's inspiration, even in jail, helped the people of South Africa to keep fighting] and 'Simuka Zimbabwe- Zimbabwe Arise' [an innovative and trenchant satire on the International Monetary Fund's Structural Adjustment programme in Zimbabwe], and 'Chris Hani: Revolutionary Fighter', a short play staged shortly after the assassination of the ANC and Umkhonto weSizwe freedom-fighter, Chris Hani. The plays are all imaginative and lively, ranging from straight agit-prop to realism and feature lots of songs, dances and physical theatre. Each playscript is prefaced with a background to the play and an account of how it was made. An interesting feature of Zambuko/Izibuko's work was its use of short political pieces created for specific occasions, called 'ngonjera', a concept adapted from Tanzania.