Stephen Joel Chifunyise and his contribution to the praxis of Afroscenology

Abstract

In this article, I want to explore the life and creative practice of Stephen Chifunyise to assemble a couple of features that characterize his work which he called ‘national theatre’. My starting point is that all theory is derived from practice and comes back to guide practice. By interrogating Chifunyise’s training manuals, plays, speeches, academic papers, workshop materials, contributions to newspapers and his own practice, certain trends begin to emerge which speak to a normative practice that many theatre groups/companies in Zimbabwe deployed. Within the context of this creative practice, many other African nations were grappling with the idea of a national theatre before and after Zimbabwe’s search for a theatre identity. All these African countries were foregrounding an indigenous text, usually storytelling, as the theatrical frame to which other texts and codes could be grafted to create an African aesthetic. Despite the cultural diversity of sub-Saharan Africa, there seems to be an agreement on the general framework of theatre. In this article, I have called the theory which emerged from this practice, Afroscenology. As different scholars contribute different tenets to the same theory, my underlying objective is to spell out Chifunyise’s contribution to the theory of Afroscenology.

Keywords:

• afroscenology
• agentive subalternation
• de-dramatization
• African narratology
• theatric theory
• performatic theory

Introduction: formulating Afroscenology

Stephen Chifunyise did not use the term Afroscenology to describe his praxis.¹ He, in fact, used the term ‘national theatre’ as he was interested in crafting an aesthetic that would appeal to most Zimbabweans but utilizing the indigenous text as the dominant theatrical frame to which other theatrical codes would be creatively grafted. A normative practice eventually coagulates into a theory. The term Afroscenology is my own creation to refer to the theory of a practice that has emerged from the creative practice of African and Africanist theatre makers which practice Michael Etherton (1982) has called ‘art theatre’ or ‘the African great tradition’ or simply the African canon. These are the works of intellectuals, working professionally, who got romped into universities during the decolonisation of Africa, beginning from the 1960s through to the present moment, to advance the Africanisation of theatre and its curriculum. The cohort includes Africans and Africanists who were working in collaborative theatre companies which workshopped new works utilizing the experiences of African performers. Although the work was created in different parts of sub-Saharan Africa, from this canon, very specific characteristics can be observed and crystallized into a theory which I have chosen to call Afroscenology. Indeed, the early theatre philosophers like Aristotle simply looked at the works of their contemporaries like Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles and based on their common features, Aristotle crafted what we know today as the dramatic theory, which is known by the following tenets, plot, character, thought, diction, melody and spectacle. By the same token, I looked at the theatrical texts from the African great tradition and observed key features which led me to propound the theory of Afroscenology.

Afroscenology theory is characterized by three basic structures, two of which are subsumed in the term, narratology. The third structure is the performatic theory/technique. Narratology is used here to mean an engagement with or study of stories/narratives, the way they are organized in some kind of structure and how this organisation of structural components influences the perceiver/analyst’s reception. After studying several plays now forming the African great tradition/canon, one notices recurring features in these narratives that give them an identity very much different from the dramatic narrative theorized by Aristotle as dramatic theory. I have called the first part of African narratology the theatric theory to distinguish it from the Aristotelian dramatic theory. While dramatic theory is best illustrated by a Freytag pyramid structure, the theatric theory is characterized by a series of semicircular compressions with several cantos within them to be explained below. Each compression ends with a discontinuity or dislocation or quasi-stasis. The final compression will have a similar structure but ends with a deformation. In a nutshell, the African story written through the lens of Afroscenology has an ‘exposition’ which introduces the problem/issue/subject or the inciting incident and the characters. This could happen using song, music, dance, a narrator or chorus/bards or duologue or a creative combination of any of these elements.

As the story develops, it may lack the cause-to-effect qualities found in the dramatic narrative. Most of the African and Africanist plays advancing a decolonial agenda are post-linear or non-linear. When the events that are captured lack the causal effect, they tend to produce a tantalizing force which I have called a ‘compression’. A compression is the cyclic structure of a narrative where pressure is exerted on the players causing them to perform something which may take the form of a story, a happening, a physical and/ or melodic engagement, a game or a performance, all of this taking place according to the rules established at the beginning. This does not necessarily end in a resolution but a discontinuity which I have called dislocation. The events/activities are sometimes labelled phases, cycles or units of action. Some African playwrights give these units titles, others just number them, others mislabel them as ‘scenes’ while other playwrights do not give any logical markers; the topic just changes arbitrarily to signal a new unit of action. I have called these units of action, dariro, which can be loosely translated as ‘canto’. The previous compression does not normally lead to another, and this creates a syntagmatic gap between compressions which I have called ‘discontinuity’ or even better ‘dislocation’ or ‘quasi-stasis’. The next compression repeats the same structure. The number of compressions is dependent on the playwright. If it is the last compression, it ends with what I have called a ‘deformation’. It is named as such because it is not expected to resolve the many issues raised in the compressions. The ending raises questions rather than supplying answers. The tying up of loose ends associated with dramatic narratives is not always a sought-after feature in theatric theory. Provocation, disruption, celebration, positivity and sometimes ambiguity are common endings of African plays. Below is a structure or model of the African play (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Circuitous structure of a theatrical text.

The second structure subsumed under African narratology is an aspect which may be called focalization or what Keir Elam (1993) calls epistemic, ideological and psychological codes. All plays have a story which conveys a philosophy or advances an episteme conveyed from a specific point of view/perspective. Afroscenology derives these special codes from what, in the past, was called Black Aesthetics or revolutionary aesthetics (see Taylor 2016, Chifunyise and Kavanagh 1988, and Udenta 1993). The most important aspects covered under these codes are a perspective which favours the subaltern – the African in general, the worker, lumpen proletariat, the peasant, the villager and women. The stories follow the laws of dialectics which reveal the various phases of the problems of the African subaltern and their triumph by the end of the story. The characters are not individuals but typify the larger African or subaltern society. These African characters are given agency by the playwright who then creates positive heroes out of them rather than a mass of gullible irrational people. The plays that advance political ends normally deploy socialist realism as a creative method. For the message to get through to the audience, it must be coded in a language that most people will understand and if its English, it must be domesticated through Africanising it to carry the weight and depth of Africans (see Ukala 1996, Chinweizu 1980). In short, the story must advance African politics whatever form the politics may take, must protect the personhood of African characters, create positive heroes, visiblise African characters and give them a subject place, take a black/African focalization and insist on aesthetic autonomy. Some scholars recommend the integration of spirituality in the work (See Taylor 2016, Luckett and Shaffer 2017).

The third and last structure of Afroscenology is what I have called the ‘performatic theory’. This is the theory of performer training that derives its praxis from the African canon. It is a developing theory and it is currently anchored by eight tenets. The first one is ‘hyper-imagination’ or ‘imagistic imagination’ which supports the second tenet called ‘Afrosonic mime’. African performance utilizes minimalist principles and all other props, locations, spaces, or whatever is physically missing is imagined. Whereas imagination is an element required in all acting/performance, it is required in hyper quantities in African performance as most things are imagined and made visible through mime. Mime is termed Afrosonic mime in the sense that the performer produces the sound of the missing thing through vocal proposals. As described under narratology the events in African plays do not always follow a cause-to-effect principle. African performers deploy the ‘vectorization’ technique to increase legibility by performing transitions, for example flashbacks and flashforwards. African performers also deploy ‘bifurcation’ of characters. This is the ability to play more than one characters including non-characters like inanimate objects. Given that the story is told by an ensemble, African performers deploy the technique of ‘organicity’ where they jointly use their bodies to create objects, landscapes or to illustrate an action. They may construct ‘kinetic tableaux’ in their joint performance to illustrate stories. ‘Physical action’ or ‘visual dramaturgy’ dominates the performance in terms of hierarchy of signs. Lastly, the text is used as a guide and not followed religiously as the major method of telling stories is through ‘improvizations’ or ‘etudes.’ In other words, the director and performers jointly turn the scripted text into a performance which is not dominated by the logos but by physical action. The explication of the whole theory of Afroscenology is a book length discussion. I only present it here in compressed form for the reader who has not yet read my book on the same concept, Decolonising African Theatre (Ravengai 2024).

Stephen Chifunyise’s contribution to an African aesthetic must be understood within the context of other endeavours to achieve the same outcome in other African countries. After the fall of colonialism in almost all Anglophone African countries, the new governments established ministries of arts and culture which invariably directed that state universities establish theatre departments to advance the decolonization agenda. Efua Sutherland joined the University of Ghana, Wole Soyinka the University of Ibadan, Hussein Ebrahim the University of Dar es Salaam, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Micere Mugo the University of Nairobi. Starting off from the English Department to establish course units in theatre or separate theatre departments, these intellectuals and many who followed them wrote and directed plays which proposed new ways of writing and performance. When Zimbabwe became independent in 1980 Stephen Chifunyise with an MA in Theatre was the most educated African in the discipline in Zimbabwe. It became necessary that he becomes part of the transformation and he joined the University of Zimbabwe in 1983. He left after 3 months as the new government wanted him to craft policy for the whole country, not just through a university curriculum. With a little bit more power in a government department, he was able to influence the establishment of a cultural think tank that would advance the creation of a national aesthetic which he called national theatre. A Marxist by ideological persuasion, Robert Mshengu Kavanagh replaced Chifunyise at the University of Zimbabwe, thus making a perfect replacement for a country that had chosen socialism as a guiding philosophy to grow its economy and culture. The government of Zimbabwe took advantage of the fallout between the late former President of Kenya, Daniel Arap Moi, and theatre collaborators at the Kamiriithu Community theatre project, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Ngugi wa Mirii, Micere Mugo and Kimani Gecau. The latter three were invited to Zimbabwe to pursue their passion and teach Zimbabweans this African aesthetic. They formed the Zimbabwe Foundation for Education with Production (ZIMFEP) which ran training programmes in theatre. From these strategic places in government, the academy and voluntary service, these consultants converged at workshops to train Zimbabweans on creating national theatre. Thus, Stephen Chifunyise should not be seen as a lone practitioner advancing an aesthetic that did not have a buy in from other practitioner-intellectuals. As it is the nature of theories to come after the fact, I want to establish Chifunyise’s contribution towards a theory that I have called Afroscenology.

About Chifunyise

On Monday, 5 August 2019, Stephen Joel Chifunyise died at his Vainona home in Harare, Zimbabwe.² Born on 21 September 1948, Stephen Joel Chifunyise was seventy years of age and was only forty-six days shy of his 71st birthday. It is possible that Chifunyise could have sensed that his death was near as plays he penned and performed between 2013 and 2015 dealt with disease, mourning and the spiritual realm which many Africans believe is the next phase of life. In 2013, Chifunyise penned Cancer in our blood (2013) which prefigured the disease that took his life. He also started thinking about the afterlife through his play, Taking home a spirit? (2013). Subsequent to this play, he wrote, Of course you need help fast (2014), which in hindsight spoke to the urgent medical help he needed. During the same year he wrote, Please mother, don’t cry for me (2014). He could have imagined his family mourning his death.³

On Thursday 8 August 2019, Chifunyise’s producers, Theatre in the Park, organized what they dubbed a ‘celebratory send-off service’ where hundreds of artists gathered to honour him in speeches and performances. The government of Zimbabwe honoured him with a state assisted funeral since he had worked for the government and advancing its cultural policies for several years. Many academics, artists and government officials attended the memorial service. Zambia, where Stephen Chifunyise worked and married until 1981 dispatched Professor Mwanza to deliver eulogies to honour his memory. Chifunyise was buried on Friday, 9 August 2019 at Greendale Cemetery in Harare, just after midday.

Stephen Chifunyise’s career in theatre began in 1973 while he was still a student at the University of Zambia where he became national chairman of Zambia National Theatre Arts Association ZANTAA. Yet his ideas, theories and practices on theatre have not been collected and analysed for the benefit of future practitioners. Stephen Chifunyise was born in Nhema, Shurugwi in the Midlands province of the then Southern Rhodesia. He did his Sub A up to Standard 1 at St Linus Matoranjera School in Chitomborwizi, Chinhoyi. He moved to Shamweti Primary School, Mumbwa, Zambia in 1960 to do Standard 2, transferring to Chisengalumbwe from 1961 to 1964 to pursue Standard 3 up to 6. Between 1965 and 1969 he moved from Libala Secondary School to St Marks Secondary School to complete his high school education. The following year in 1970 he enrolled for his BA with education at the University of Zambia. After completing his studies, he worked as a teacher at Matero Boys Secondary School between 1974 and 1975 where he had done his high school education. He went abroad to the USA where he successfully completed his MA in Theatre Arts in 1977 returning to Zambia the same year to take a post as drama lecturer at University of Zambia until 1979. In 1979, the Zambian government took him as the Director of Zambia Cultural Services and he left this job in 1981 to return to his newly liberated country, Zimbabwe. Stephen Chifunyise held various positions in the field of theatre. He was director of Chikwakwa Theatre of UNZA (1977-1979), Secretary General of International Theatre Institute, Zambia Centre (1977-1982), Secretary of National Music Industry Advisory Committee to the government of Zambia (1980-1982) and Vice President of the Union of African Performing Artists from 1983. It was during this time that Stephen Chifunyise developed his ideas on theatre which this article will explore (see Ravengai 2019)

When Zimbabwe attained her independence, Stephen Chifunyise returned home and worked as Programme Producer at the Audio-Visual Services in the Ministry of Education and Culture, leaving in 1983 to join the University of Zimbabwe as drama lecturer. He left after three months to re-join government as Chief Cultural Officer, rising to the positions of Director of Arts and Crafts (1983-1988), Deputy Secretary to the Vice President of Zimbabwe (1988-1995), Permanent Secretary Ministry of Sport, Recreation and Culture (1995-1997) and finally Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Culture (1997-2000). Stephen Chifunyise was at home in the vaunted environs of leading world bodies such as UNESCO where he worked as a part time arts, culture and education consultant between 2000 and the time of his death. Here he advanced the culture, heritage and conventions and policies by conducting workshops and symposiums in many countries to promote them. As an educationist, he was the principal of the Zimbabwe Academy of Arts Education for Development (ZAAED) between 2000 and the time of his death. He worked in the retail side of the arts as a General Manager of Kingstons Entertainment between 2004 and 2010, a chain store in Zimbabwe that sells books and music.

Chifunyise’s creative practice

Although the Zimbabwean media puts Stephen Chifunyise’s creative output at more than seventy plays (ITI 2009, The Sunday Mail 2019), this figure is too conservative given the evidence Chifunyise left with me. He shared a comprehensive professional CV with me two years before his death. The media statistics sometimes excludes the work that he developed while resident in Zambia and also the work beyond 2010 which his last updated CV does not capture. From 2014 Stephen Chifunyise made it a habit to send me his finished plays for review. I ran a review column in the Panorama online magazine which is now defunct.

While in Zambia as a high school student at Matero Boys Secondary School and the time he left government employment in 1981, Chifunyise developed eighteen works, eight of which were television dramas beamed on Zambia Television between 1975 and 1978. Four of these works ended up being published as stage plays in Chifunyise’s first published anthology, Medicine for love (1984), which has a collection of four plays. For this reason, Chifunyise’s long-time friend and South African/Zimbabwean academic, Robert Mshengu Kavanagh (aka McLaren) has described him ‘as a cultural giant, possibly more honoured outside his country than within. Internationally and in Africa, Zambia, in particular, he looms large’. Claimed by both Zambia and Zimbabwe, the former dispatched Professor Mwanza who represented the Zambian cultural sector to come to Zimbabwe for Chifunyise’s funeral.

After a three-year gestation period on his return to Zimbabwe, Chifunyise started writing for live performance in 1984 with his debut TV drama, Solo and Mutsai. Between 1984 and his last recorded play, Oh my grandfather (2016), Chifunyise wrote and staged 55 plays. I am not sure of the quantities produced between 2016 and 2019 when he died. Over and above these plays, Chifunyise published the following plays: Medicine for love (1984) [four plays], Hungry children (1991), To love is to care (1995), Kubika mapoto/ Living in (1997), Tough choices (2007) [four plays] and Intimate affairs (2008) [five plays]. Excluding the last five plays which are listed on his professional CV, we can count eleven plays on the published list. The verifiable total now stands at eighty-four plays and since it is possible that he wrote more plays between 2016 and August 2019, I would put the total at slightly over eighty-five plays.

Stephen Chifunyise’s academic papers (1994, 1997) do not articulate in any meaningful way his vision of a new Zimbabwean theatre. It is, however, in his speeches (as director of arts and crafts and later as permanent secretary in Zimbabwe’s ministry of education, sport and culture), newspaper articles and training manuals, that he clearly adumbrated the characteristics of what he called the new ‘national theatre’ (1988, p. 40). Most of his plays do not evidence this theory but that of his fellow practitioners and collaborators. Whereas during the colonial era theatre was clearly divided into binary oppositions – black theatre and white theatre (although there were a few exceptions) Chifunyise advocated for a non-racial culture in which ‘the themes of our national theatre should be non-racial’ (1988, p. 40). Black theatre artists could work on their own or with what Ndema Ngwenya calls ‘progressive whites’ (1988, p. 13) or inversely whites could work on their own or with black artists to create a new national theatre. According to Chifunyise (1986, 1988) in this new national theatre, the old colonial labels of black/white theatre and English/vernacular theatre were ridiculous and irrelevant. For this reason, Chifunyise deplored the practice of high art which accentuates racial divisions by creating theatre for an elite audience (mostly whites) dealing in imported themes. Chifunyise argued that this western theatre practice consolidated cultural imperialism (1986, 1988) and government would intervene by withdrawing financial support. This political comment was not carried out entirely during the period as by 1986 of the $60 000 made available to support the arts through the National Arts Foundation (changed to National Arts Council in 1987 through an act of parliament) a meagre $5000⁴ went to black arts organizations that emerged after independence (Chifunyise and Kavanagh 1988, p. 14).

Whereas Chifunyise pushed for an integrative approach where all ethnicities and races worked together to create a national theatre, Ngugi wa Mirii, Chifunyise’s collaborator, preferred isolationism where the working class and peasants who, because of their historical circumstances, were in the main black, worked towards fighting the unfair labour practices of the middle and upper classes. For this reason, the 250 theatre companies that were either members or associates of Zimbabwe Association of Community Theatre (ZACT) were not allowed to join the National Theatre Organisation (NTO) which wa Mirii viewed as representing ‘cultural imperialism’ (Byam 1999, p. 125). On the other hand, whites could join ZACT on ZACT’s terms, a move which wa Mirii thought was impossible as doing so would be tantamount to committing what he called ‘class suicide’ (Byam 1999, p. 125).

Chifunyise and Kavanagh shared an opposition to art for art’s sake and were believers in the functionality of theatre. Unlike theatre which celebrated the perfection of the form of the playwright’s craft and which dealt with individuality and privatist themes, Chifunyise and Kavanagh lobbied for a theatre that was politically engaged and preoccupied with social and national problems with a Marxist-Leninist ideological inclination. They called this theatre ‘revolutionary theatre’ (Chifunyise and Kavanagh 1988, p. 2) that is based on ‘a philosophy that is rooted strongly in socialism  – a philosophy which dictates that theatre should be a tool for political and ideological development’ (Chifunyise 1986, p. 15). As a result of this isolationist stance, wa Mirii developed a linguistic purism in his theatre philosophy characterised by the exclusive use of either Shona or Ndebele (Byam 1999, p. 117, Wa Mirii 1988). Depending on Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Decolonising the Mind (1987) wa Mirii argues that language is a carrier of culture and therefore African languages will best carry the weight and depth of African people’s experiences. Wa Mirii’s very first project in September 1982 after migrating to Zimbabwe was a staging of Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Micere Mugo’ The Trial of Dedan Kimathi in Shona at Penga Penga Growth Point and subsequently throughout the country. In all Ngugi wa Mirii’s subsequent theatre workshops, he underscored the need to write and perform in African languages. Stephen Chifunyise on the other did not make any public pronouncement on language preferences. We can only speculate based on his preferences in writing. Most of his plays are written in English but a kind of English that carries African proverbs, similes and exudes African values. For example, in most African cultures a first name cannot be used to address a person once they are an adult or married. In all plays by Chifunyise, characters are addressed by how they are related to the younger family members, ‘mother of..’, ‘father of … ’, ‘uncle of..’ etc. This is a quality of language that is called relexification where on the surface the language appears Europhone, yet it carries the rhythms, thought patterns, pitch, tone, accent, grammar, and idioms of an African language.

Chifunyise advanced his theatre praxis through formal theatre workshops such as the one held at the Bulawayo Sun Hotel (19-20 July 1986). The training of artists⁵ included a combination of lectures, performances, demonstrations and post-lecture and performance discussions. The content of the workshop was heavily weighed on the side of performances and post-performance discussions. Indeed, the aims of the workshop were not to teach skills as was the case with NTO workshops (see Ravengai 2014), but to boost confidence amongst artists on the rich performance traditions that they already had:

• To provide a platform for community theatre artists to meet and share their problems and experiences.

• To discuss ways and means of establishing a strong community-based theatre movement in Matabeleland and in Zimbabwe as a whole.

• To demonstrate theatre skills and discuss mobilization, organization and theatre group leadership techniques (Wa Mirii 1986, p. 3).

The workshop was spread over two days and each day began with introductions and warm  – up exercises derived from African traditions such as stories, songs, poems, chants, jokes and dances. Day two warm-up session was peculiar for its use of song and dance from the cultures of participating groups. Song and dance have become a permanent feature in warm-up sessions amongst Zimbabwean theatre groups including the University of Zimbabwe. Song and dance also occupy a large portion of the content of alternative performances.

An important part of the training was the teaching of socialist realism. This was facilitated by Stephen Chifunyise, then a director in the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture. Chifunyise stressed the importance of class analysis and the role of the theatre maker in that process. He suggested that a theatre group should have the class consciousness of its community and must use the material from the community as well as skills that the group already had from traditions passed down from generation to generation. Lectures were interspersed with performances and post-performance discussions. Mthwakazi Actors and Writers Association (MAWA) presented Untitled (1986) written by Ndema Ngwenya.⁶ There was a post-performance discussion by participants guided by four questions of an ideological nature:

• Theatre for whom?

• How can we create theatre relevant to our situation?

• How can we adapt national art forms to modern life and social change?

• How can we develop our political consciousness to help us link artistic forms with appropriate content? (Wa Mirii 1986, p. 23)

This ideological inclination was shared by other theatre consultants, Ngugi wa Mirii, and Kimani Gecau.⁷ In a joint paper ‘Processes for creating community theatre’ (1983) wa Mirii and Gecau were unambiguous about their ideological perspective; they called for a theatre that was on the side of the working class and peasants. In that theatre, the director was not a hero; neither should the creative process include a single main character who defeats the antagonist while other supporting characters watch the hero helplessly. Wa Mirii (1988, p. 40) argued that ‘the people’s theatre must project the peasants and workers as the true creators of history and wealth’. He further postulated the view that ‘people’s theatre should portray the peasants and workers with human dignity, courage, determination and ability to deal with social reality as opposed to the way they are presented as fools, drunks, irresponsible, violent, lazy and unproductive’ (ibid). Chifunyise and Kavanagh (1988, p. 1–2) express a similar view of theatre which is attributable to Marxism, a theory all the four theatre consultants unequivocally drew from.

The agency that Chifunyise suggested should be given to peasant and proletarian characters is derived from Karl Marx’s ‘historical materialism’ (1859, p. 328–329). While in Marxists terms the valorization is limited to the working class, in African plays, the agency is given to the subaltern, black people who occupy powerless positions as villagers, peasants, workers, women and lumpen proletariat. Because the subject place is given to subalterns and not just the working class the term agentive subalternation is more appropriate. Thus, in the plays influenced by the four theatre consultants, it is the African peasants, villagers, women and children who are the true creators of history through challenging their exploiters after first realizing that the status quo is unsustainable. This is the theoretical tenet that I have called agentive subalternation or simply focalization. In plays written from a Eurocentric perspective, the black person is invisible both literally and figuratively. Harare Repertory Players (Reps) normally stage plays that would have done well at London’s Westend Theatre and these normally (especially the old colonial types) have no place for black people. Their place in white controlled theatres like Reps would be backstage, sweeping and scrubbing floors, building sets and so on and by so doing making them invisible in a country where they are the majority. If cast in a play, they would be given minor stereotypical roles like pimps, chauffeurs, handymen and urchins as observed by Pikirayi Deketeke (Rohmer 1999, p. 225). Paul C Taylor (2016) calls this condition the ‘invisiblization’ of black people. This invisiblization comes in the form of literal absence of blacks on stage or if present, in the form of an attack on their personhood. This is the domain of stereotypes which Plastow (1996) attributed to all white authored plays written in colonial Zimbabwe. In response to this, Stephen Chifunyise called for agentive subalternation of black characters. This means visibilizing them and projecting them in positive light. Since the subaltern characters form most of the population, the African plays must therefore create space for them through subalternation and give them agency.

In terms of performance, Chifunyise proposed a post-independence non-Eurocentric aesthetic which utilized indigenous texts as its backbone. This is an aesthetic which Ezekiel Mphahlele (1974, p. 47–53) called the ‘ethnic imperative’. In literary production the ethnic imperative is known variously as ‘Africanity’ (Gugelberger 1985), ‘Afrocentric liberationist’ (Chinweizu 1980), ‘Folkism’ (Ukala 1996) while in theatre I have decided to call it Afroscenology and in the Caribbean islands as ‘theatre of exuberance’ or ‘theatre of assimilation’ (Balme 1999). As can be seen from these different descriptors of the ‘ethnic imperative’ there is no agreement on what constitutes this aesthetic practice. Two categories which are porous and fluctuating can be created to explain the practice of these groupings.

The first group is characterized by its artistic choices which Loren Kruger (2020, p. 23) called ‘re-tradinationalization’ which implies not a return to pre-modern custom for nativist reasons, but a re-appropriation of customary practices for present day purposes. Kruger gives an example in South Africa of the Mthethwa Brothers who after being shaped by modernization institutions like the mission school, Lovedale, Adams College or the Ohlange Institute returned to the creative space and appropriated forms from their playing culture to deal with contemporary issues. This is to be distinguished from nativists or as they are pejoratively described by Soyinka ‘neo-Tarzanists’ denoting those who uphold African essentialist pre-colonial cultural purity or Kruger’s ‘neo-traditionalist’ to refer to ‘a de-historicized view of tradition as timeless and immune to present politics’ (2020, p. 23). The re-traditionalists are represented by the troika of Chinweizu, Jemie and Madubuike (1980), who like the revolutionary realist-Negritudist Aime Cesaire (1969) were preoccupied with the sovereignty, harmony and glory of pre-colonial African theatre practices and aimed to engage colonialism by denying its cultural dominance. If there is to be syncretism with colonial cultural practices, ‘such synthesis must be within the parameters of the African tradition rather than outside it’ (Chinweizu et al 1980, p. 239). In other words, colonial theatre practices will be inscribed within the African theatre matrix for purposes of modernizing and revitalizing tradition. The overarching desire of this group is not integration into the fold of world theatre, but the formation of an autonomous entity that is separate from all other theatre practices.

Gugelberger calls the second group ‘Ogunist critics’ (1985, p. 12) or in the words of Balme (1999), ‘syncretists’ represented by Wole Soyinka, Dambudzo Marechera, Andrew Whaley and in some cases Athol Fugard. Like the neo-traditionalists, they rely on tradition for their performative idiom but write and create theatre in which the text dominates other forms in the hierarchy. Instead of being politically engaged and dwelling on nationalist public themes like the first group, the syncretists are individuals who write on private themes. Admittedly, these two categories are merely theoretical and most theatre groups who use the ‘ethnic imperative’ approach (and they are many) are situated between these two extremes.

Chifunyise’s theatre philosophy was located between these two aesthetic camps. He maintained that the performative idiom of national theatre must be based on ‘the people’s visual and performing arts which should become the major feature of their theatre’ (Chifunyise 1986, p. 15). In other words, the cumulative use of indigenous texts should result in them becoming dominant in the theatre. Chifunyise was aware of the importance of western theatrical heritage and advocated for its use in unison with indigenous texts especially where theatre making was structured around the concept of drama.⁸

In this regard, Chifunyise proposed two ways of creating theatre. The first proposal was centred on the concept of dramatic theatre. Here, the theatre maker takes recourse to writing drama following Aristotelian dramatic theory but incorporates song and dance at strategic points as summarized in Chifunyise’s training manual.

• In every break in the play

• At change of scenes/acts

• To create an atmosphere/location/cultural environment or indicate progression of time

• To bring life into the play

• To explain or expand the theme of the play/remind the audience of the message/hidden theme

• To involve or awaken the audience

• To begin or end the play/rejuvenate it/help to create impact (Chifunyise 1986, p. 35)

In this approach, the matrix of performance is western and indigenous texts are inscribed within that matrix, and they alter the western dramaturgical frame while indigenous texts are themselves equally altered.

Chifunyise’s second proposal can aptly be described as ‘de-dramatization’ of theatre in the sense that he attempts to move away from the primacy of the written text (which implies death of the playwright and the ascendancy of the director in the creative process) to a type of theatre that utilizes the body as the nucleus of performance or as he puts it as ‘the most critical tool in creating theatre’ (Chifunyise 2016, p. viii). Chifunyise described this theatre as ‘dance-drama’ although the term itself is a misnomer in the sense that in actual performance of this theatre, drama is almost dead. Dialogue is minimal and where it is used it is not intended to be constructed around the Aristotelian notion of plot. Instead, the theatre maker creates a performance through dance, song, music, mime, chants, ululation, recitals and movement (Chifunyise 1986, p. 36). A more appropriate term would be dance-theatre. According to Chifunyise, traditional songs, dances and ceremonies, rallies, recitals and festivals could be brought to the stage as they are and then rearranged for coherence and order. This seems to resonate with the Caribbean theatre of exuberance or theatre of assimilation proposed by Errol Hill (Balme 1999, p. 44). Since Chifunyise believed in the functionality of theatre and its ideological impact, he proposed that the songs and dances chosen by the theatre maker should depict the interests of peasants and workers. Alternatively, Chifunyise (1986, p. 36–37) proposed that the songs and dances could be used out of their original contexts by changing the words and inscribing new ones to an existing melody. The traditional dances could be re-choreographed to suit the new needs of the director.

Like Chifunyise, wa Mirii who had developed a similar type of theatre at Kamiriithu in Kenya together with Kimani Gecau and Ngugi wa Thiong’o, pitched a type of theatre that deploys dance, song, mime and gesture as according to him this represented the ‘only genuine direction for a true Zimbabwean theatre’ (1988, p. 40). This ethnic imperative is a position shared by Wa Mirii and Gecau (1983, p. 1–5) and Kavanagh (2016, p. 74–103). Kavanagh (2016) devotes a whole chapter ‘A more Expressive theatre’ to explain how song, dance, mime and poetry can be incorporated in a typical African theatre.

None of Chifunyise’s plays that were written and published in Zimbabwe demonstrates this theory exhaustively. It is in the plays of his colleagues and friends (wa Mirii, Kavanagh and Mujajati) that such a theory of the text and performance is demonstrated. I asked Chifunyise if he preached what he could not practise and he indicated that his plays The Retired Ones (1979) and Mr Polera (1978 ) (unpublished) which he wrote while still exiled in Zambia typified his performance theory. In 1985 ZIMFEP sponsored the visit of a Zambian theatre company, Kanyama, to conduct a series of training workshops by demonstration. According to Byam (1999, p. 118), Kanyama theatre spent two months in Zimbabwe performing in schools, community centres, the National Art Gallery and in open spaces. They performed Stephen Chifunyise’s The Retired Ones (unpublished) and Mr Polera (unpublished) which he had written while exiled in Zambia. Kanyama demonstrated the viability of performing in African languages  – Nyanja, Bemba and Tumbuka which they combined with English. Plurilingualism became a marker of the new Zimbabwean theatre. The plays also featured song and dance. The major goal of this sponsored cultural visit was to demonstrate to Zimbabwean theatre makers how other independent African countries like Zambia had developed their own theatre aesthetic which in several ways destabilized and deconstructed the colonial illusionistic theatre tradition. The decolonization of theatre in Zimbabwe was not an isolated case but had parallels in Southern Africa. The move towards an Afrocentric theatre was given impetus in the 1990s and early 2000s by Southern African Theatre Initiative (SATI), which, though based in Johannesburg, was active in most SADC countries, providing a regional exchange of ideas. He further maintained that since 1971 when he started writing for the University of Zambia Dramatic Society (UZAMDRAMS) and Matero Boys Secondary School in 1973, he featured music and dance as the vehicle of dramatic structure in most of his plays. These include Mwaziona (n.d), Who Will Dance (n.d), Story of Mankind (n.d), The Slave Caravan (n.d) and Kachipapal (n.d) up to 1981. In Zimbabwe during the period 1980–1996 Chifunyise told me that he wrote plays that were performed by Glen Norah Women’s Theatre, Rooftop Promotions, People’s Theatre Company, Mount Pleasant High School, Alternative Savannah Theatre and Zvido Theatre Company, that includes Temporary Shelter (n.d), Farai (n.d) and My Piece of Land (n.d). All of them featured song and dance⁹ (Chifunyise 2011).

Whereas in colonial Rhodesia the arts were compartmentalized by using different venues for each so that orchestra and opera used concert halls such as Courtauld Hall, choral societies performed at the Civic Theatre in Harare that was not a theatre space, while drama was performed in properly designed theatres such as Reps theatre, Chifunyise advocated for a national theatre that would utilize most of the creative arts. Up to the time of his death, he encouraged theatre groups to work with dance, choral song groups as well as church choirs, military and police bands to create some kind of total theatre. I have seen this approach to creativity work amazingly well in Vuyani Dance Company’s production, Cion (2022). Throughout the performance, the Soweto Gospel Choir provides the music for the action on stage. However, Chifunyise argued that the dominant sign system should be chosen by the director and not imposed by his theatre convention:

It is good, for example, to determine whether you will heavily be using dance drama and therefore develop excellence in dance, song, choreography, etc. If you want to specialise in dialogue drama it is up to you to then develop theatre skills related to dialogue drama, e.g., movement, mime, etc. (1986, p. 37)

From the above evidence Chifunyise was proposing a performance theory that sought to ‘de-dramatize’ theatre by recourse to non-plot-based performance modes such as dance, song, chants and other indigenous texts. This theory seeks to secularize performance by taking ceremonies, festivals, rituals and supplications from their religious contexts into theatre for their spectacle and aesthetic quality. Chifunyise sought to revolutionise ‘acting’ (as it is known in western psychological realism) and transform it into performance where a multi-dimensional character is not the goal, but a body performing in real time is preferred. By bringing in music, dance and song, Chifunyise sought to ‘ceremonialise’ theatre. These performatics are taken from their religious contexts and used in the secular performance where they are valorized for their aesthetic quality. Here the body is the central theatrical sign of performance. Theatre no longer imitates action; it is the action itself. Theatre becomes a public action, or an event rather than a mimesis of the fictive world as is the case with Aristotelian theatre.

It was these ideas and theories of performance propagated by Chifunyise, Kavanagh, wa Mirii and Gecau which were the driving force that gave shape and direction to much of the Zimbabwean theatrical output during the period 1980-1996. I hope to have explained the new theory of Afroscenology and its three dimensions of theatric theory, performatic theory and narratology. While Chifunyise was not invested in all its structures, what this article has demonstrated is how he contributed to its praxis mainly through his training manuals, speeches and media writings. I have provided a language to speak about his contributions. Clearly, Chifunyise was not alone in this endeavour to decolonize Zimbabwean theatre. I have provided the context in which he carried out his praxis by highlighting the pronouncements and work of some of his peers and collaborators like Ngugi wa Mirii and Robert Mshengu Kavanagh. I believe that an engagement with plays is a different task which may require a different kind of output.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 This article was developed partly from an obituary I wrote when Stephen Chifunyise passed on and was published in The Theatre Times Magazine. South African History Online and The African Theatre Magazine reproduced the article with my permission and that of The Theatre Times. Some sections of the article were culled from my doctoral thesis. The online platforms are not accredited or listed repositories. The rest of the article represents original work.

2 Stephen Chifunyise was receiving home-based care after it was clear that he was losing his battle with cancer. It was on the same date that Toni Morrison, the renowned novelist, died and because of her geopolitical privilege, her death eclipsed that of Stephen Chifunyise on international news channels. Toni Morrison’s reputation in literary circles is comparable or arguably even exceeded by Stephen Chifunyise in theatre circles as will shortly become clear.

3 Chifunyise interacted with many people and cared about them. He was described by his producer, Daves Guzha in a statement released to the media as ‘representing the best of whatever he had set his mind at yet remained humble, good humoured and accommodating regardless of who sought his counsel or friendship. Stephen (Chifunyise) was equally comfortable among artists whom he regarded as his peers’. Being a Shumba of the Sipambi clan (lion of the Sipambi lineage) he lived and died like his totemic animal, the lion. He separated himself from his artistic family to fight this disease monitored by his nucleus family. He wanted to be remembered as a strong lion.

4 1 US dollar was worth 1.50 Zimbabwean dollars in 1986.

5 Over a hundred community-based theatre artists attended the workshop including five district cultural officers from Matabeleland South and North. The social background of participants ranged from individual artists and playwrights, teachers, young people, elderly literacy learners, industrial workers, unemployed youths, students and the disabled.

6 This was followed by Musekiwa (1986) presented by Tose Sonke theatre group. Kuwirirana theatre group’s Akusi Mulandu Wami (1986) then followed and post-performance discussions were held to critique these plays. The facilitators used the same list of questions to guide the post-performance discussion.

7 Although Kimani Gecau initially came from Kenya as a theatre consultant working under the auspices of Zimbabwe Foundation for Education with Production (ZIMFEP) he got a job as lecturer in the English Department of the University of Zimbabwe and withdrew all his services from theatre. He therefore did not write and practice theatre as much as the other three consultants.

8 Dramatic theatre is the enunciation of the dramatic text usually by ‘method’ trained or influenced actors. In this case the theatre simply illustrates dramatic literature or in other words the theatre is a realisation of the dramatic text as it is defined in this study. Dramatic theatre relies mainly on mimesis through actors imitating human speech and natural movements and supported by a created space/set which imitates or suggests nature or created things.

9 I triangulated these claims and found out that Byam (1999) and Munyaradzi Chatikobo (1994), indeed, recorded these performances as having taken place and performed with much song and dance.