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Cry thinking - a play on television about growing up deaf by the deaf
Robert McLaren
August 10, 2007

What is it like to grow up knowing that you are not like other people? You are deaf.

This is the question that was put to the young deaf actors at Emerald Hill School for the Deaf when they began preparing their play - which is the next in the current CHIPAWO Media 'Onstage' television series. One of the children wrote in her response to the question that 'every night I used to cry, thinking that I was the only deaf person in the world'. And so the play that they came up with is called 'Cry Thinking'.

An interesting theatrical device is the way in which the play tells the story in two parallel streams. There is the realistic portrayal of how everyone is so happy when Rumbi is born but then one day her mother discovers that she cannot hear. This prompts her husband's sisters to blame her and urge him to drive her away. Rumbi is taken to a doctor and to an n'anga but there seems little hope as they all proclaim her incurably deaf. The story goes on to show how she manages to partly transcend her condition and lead, with her family, a more normal life.

In the other stream, the experience is shown not realistically but through mime. Deafness is conceived of as a box. The mimers first discover the box then explore it and try to break out. They see people but the people cannot help them. Eventually they find a way out and they try to talk to each other and others but as they are deaf, they find they cannot do this either. Finally they are taught Sign Language and this gives them the power to communicate - with each other but not with the rest of the world as they cannot speak their language. The play is a powerful argument for the teaching of Sign Language to the hearing.

Of the actors, one of them, the principal mimer, has subsequently become famous. This is Audrey Chakara, who recently represented Zimbabwe in an international deaf beauty competition. After 'Cry Thinking' she went on to be a presenter in CHPAWO Media's Sign Language television series, 'Handspeak'.

"Cry Thinking' was first performed at the Reps Theatre, where it was also filmed for television. It subsequently went to Germany to participate in the 7th World Festival of Children's Theatre, Lingen, in July 2002.

Coming up after "Cry Thinking' in the 'Onstage' television series, currently being flighted on ZTV, is a fascinating play by the well-known playwright, Stephen Chifunyise. This play, 'Soul Sista Comes to Afrika', acted by New Horizon Theatre Company, tells of an African American woman who marries a Zimbabwean in the United States. Much to the man's consternation, she wishes to go back with him to Zimbabwe to be married in the traditional way. He knows the problems she will experience and tries to dissuade her. She however persists - and experiences a severe bout of culture shock.

New to New Horizon Theatre Company is the rookie actress from the University of Zimbabwe, Charmaine Mujeri, who plays Gloria, the African American wife. Viewers will be interested to see how she handles the accent and behaviour of Black Americans. Known for his work on Kidznet is CHIPAWO graduate, Tinovimba Chimbetete, who plays the part of Gloria's basketball-obsessed younger brother. When still at primary school, Tinovimba represented CHIPAWO and Zimbabwe at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on children and the Children's Forum in New York, where he presented a one-man show on HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe.

"Soul Sista' is followed by the comic opera in Shona, 'Dhongi Ra Sabhuku Mangwende' and after that 'Jari Mukaranga' - English subtitle "I Am Also Your Wife'., another play based on a popular song. The second series of Onstage continues with 'A Doll's House', claimed by some to be the first feminist play, by the famous Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, and winds up with a dance programme called "Beautiful Zimbabwe", which is designed to celebrate Zimbabwe by demonstrating its most famous traditional dances, with explanations about their origin and social context.

The aim of the television series is to bring high quality professional youth theatre filmed onstage in a well-equipped theatre to television audiences in Zimbabwe while contributing to training and professional employment in theatre and television for the youth. 'Onstage' also promotes an alternative home-grown African youth culture and tries to demonstrate to local audiences, who might never have visited a theatre, what a high quality theatre performance is like thus hopefully building audiences for theatre on television and onstage. Finally the series tries to expose audiences to thought-provoking local as well as world literature.

Many of the plays featured in the series are performed by the New Horizon Theatre Company. The members of this company are young actors and actresses, all of whom have graduated either from CHIPAWO and its various performing groups or from the Zimbabwe Academy of Arts Education for Development with a Diploma in Performing Arts or a Diploma in Media Arts from the Midlands State University.

The company represents not only a new horizon but also a new breed of trained and experienced young performers, who have been in performance since they were very young and have many stage appearances under their belt. The company came into existence when the performers who had been active in the Harare Youth Theatre joined forces with other CHIPAWO graduates, some of them already employed by CHIPAWO, to form a theatre company. Many of the members had taken part in various CHIPAWO productions when they were still in CHIPAWO, including Meetingplace 2000 and Images of Africa in Denmark and also in the Wills and Inheritance Laws Campaign, whre they performed four plays relating to wills and inheritance laws nationally.

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