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Daves
Guzha's political satire deplores violence
The Financial
Gazette (Zimbabwe)
August 07, 2008
http://allafrica.com/stories/200808080584.html
Everybody is
free...free...to feel good...feel good... The last time I had heard
this song was in the 1980s when Zimbabwe had just gained independence
from Britain. Then, the musician, pop diva Rozalla Miller was among
young musicians who celebrated Zimbabwe's independence through song.
The year is
2008 when I hear this song once again. Not from radio or television,
but from a political satire, The Two Leaders I Know which showed
in Harare.
Acclaimed theatre
producer and actor, Daves Guzha stars in this one-man play in which
he plays Ian Smith (the late last Rhodesian prime minister) and
Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe's current president).
Guzha, who turned
40 this year, says he has only known these two leaders in his entire
life. "In my 40 years, I have known only two presidents, two
wars and two sanctions."
The play is
spiced with several war time songs including some by war veteran
and ruling ZANU-PF supporter Dick Chingaira, popularly known as
Cde Chinx. "It is always important to include songs and the
ones we are using are carefully chosen," remarks Guzha.
Guzha says theatre
must include songs as they help capture different moods. In the
play, as Guzha describes a crocodile and its brutality, he bursts
into a popular song by Michael Jackson: I am dangerous....dangerous...
"When the
crocodile bites it does not let go," Guzha says in the play
adding: "If its prey escapes it follows, even to far away distances."
As political
violence flared in the country after the March elections Guzha and
several other actors took to the stage to denounce it.
Independent
newspapers and civic organisations published harrowing reports about
victims of politically-motivated violence in rural villages, murders
and the torching of homes.
For Guzha to
stage the play at a time of political turmoil in Zimbabwe was very
courageous. He mentions President Mugabe by name -- something rare
in Zimbabwean theatre.
When opposition
political leaders were battered by the police in March last year,
Cont Mhlanga wrote a play The Good President. One scene takes place
in a police station where the police have caught a protesters (an
elected leader) and they are beating him up. The third scene is
about a president celebrating and defending state violence on television.
Mhlanga says:
"This happened in March and that is what inspired me to write
the play The Good President." The Bulawayo playwright and producer
deplores political violence. "In my opinion, there is nothing
flowery and poetic about the current situation the country is facing.
There is nothing flowery and poetic about a corrupt political leadership
that celebrates state violence."
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