Victories in Drama

I’ve been writing over the last few posts about some of the “victories” I’ve had over the last few days (although the victories are always God’s, aren’t they? For from him and through him and to him are all things. Romans 11:36). Well one thing that has been coming along really well over the last couple of weeks is the work I’ve been doing with the older youth in drama. 

About 2 weeks ago, I finally started a project with them that I’ve been wanting to start for some time. I’ve been wanting to lead them in writing their own play, then performing it. I wanted them to pull from their own experiences or from other general experiences of DP kids—life on the streets, in the slums, etc. This way they would have real ownership of the play and would be able to voice some of their own stories. 

This project has been on the back burner for a long time for many different reasons. Honestly I very strongly doubted my own ability to lead such a project, and I also doubted the youth’s interest and ability. I don’t have any experience in writing scripts, much less in leading a group to write one together! And when I started it, would they slouch in their chairs and stare at me over the top of their eyes, refusing to participate like teenagers are just so good at doing? 

I’ve also been working with a local volunteer, and between cultural and language barriers, I had a hard time getting him in agreement and understanding over what I wanted to do. He was bringing in lots of other scripts for them to do, which I didn’t necessarily have anything against, especially because it’s always best to be working alongside a Ugandan person, so that way when I leave things don’t just fall apart. But eventually I had to sit down with him and say, “Look I’m leaving in a few months, and I want to do this project. We have to do it now because time is running out.” So we agreed to start it. 

Then... 

the students went on holiday. Back on the back burner for another month. 

Well now they’re back, and I knew I had to jump in with both feet the first day they were back, or it would never happen. Still unsure how exactly to drive this boat, I faked confidence and started with having the group brainstorm themes that could appear in the play, such as child neglect, alcoholism, drought or floods that lead to poverty, etc. Then we brainstormed possible settings, then took a majority vote, finally deciding on Katwe, Kampala’s biggest and worst slum. We also came up with some characters and traits, such as an alcoholic dad. It’s going to be a cheery play, can’t you tell? 

They had wasted half of our time the first day by being late (surprise surprise) so that’s all we had time for. I was a little thankful actually, because I wasn’t entirely sure what to do next! So the next time we met, we first dealt with a few questions like what we want to communicate to the audience, what we want them to think and feel so we could have a little focus. Then we started working on a plot outline. I had doubted their interest, but they were fairly participatory. A few just slouched in their chairs and didn’t input anything, but there were enough coming up with good ideas to create a general outline for the plot. By the end of the hour, we had a plot! I was kind of surprised how easily it had come together. I don’t know if it will be a quality production by the time it’s put together, but hey it’s something! 

Ok so Africans do theatre very differently than Americans. I guess that’s a no-brainer; it’s a different culture, why wouldn’t a cultural custom be done differently? It took me awhile to realize some of their methods because the plays they were doing were in Luganda, but I soon realized that the “scripts” the local volunteer (Kasozi is his name) was bringing in were not scripts as we know them in the West with specific lines for each character to memorize and follow directly. What he was bringing in was like one page for the whole play, with key action points jotted down. 

Kasozi would pick a few people, tell them, “You’re this character, you’re that character, this is what needs to happen in this scene.” Then they would just go at it and I swear you could think they had been rehearsing for months. They’re just naturals. Africa has always been a story-telling culture, so it’s ingrained in them somewhere to be able to just tell stories like this. 

If they weren’t doing something how Kasozi thought it should be done, he would step into the scene and show them how to act it, then have them do what he did. This felt like nails on a chalkboard to me at first. From all my training in drama, one of this biggest things you’re taught is to never ever ever show someone how to act and just tell them to mimic you. Directors (good ones anyway) are supposed to find the right words to get you to find the action from within and blah blah blah. Ok so I had to just let go of this. I’m not here to change the way an entire culture does theatre. You’ve got to look at the big picture in times like these. Is it working for them? Yes. So just go with it. 

So this has all worked out to be tremendously helpful in the task of writing a play together. We came up with maybe 10 or 12 key points in the play, then the next time we met, it was enough to get on our feet and start putting it together. There’s no need to get tangled in actually writing a word for word script. That could get really tricky and tedious working as a group anyway. As long as each person knows what’s to be accomplished in any given scene and is capable of getting it there, we’ve got ourselves a play. 

They perform better in Luganda, and while we may have to eventually perform it in English, for now they’re putting it together in Luganda. So Kasozi has mostly taken over with directing it as they improvise through each scene, which is great because I finally feel like we’re working together on this rather than our conversations from a few months ago where he didn’t seem to understand at all what I had in mind. 

I’m watching the play sort of magically appear before my eyes, and it’s truly inspiring.