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The most wonderful thing
CHIPAWO
August 16, 2010

If one were to ask anyone what would be the most wonderful thing of all to happen to them, I wonder what they would say. What would you say? 'The most wonderful thing' is the title of a new production by New Horizon Theatre, the professional youth company established by CHIPAWO as a project in its Youth Programme some years ago.

So where does the title come from? Well, it happens to be the last line in a very famous play by the great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen. 'A Doll's House'.

In early October there is a conference and workshop taking place in Lusaka, Zambia, entitled 'Ibsen Through African Eyes'. It kicks off with a one-day conference in which a number of speakers, including the Nigerian playwright, Femi Osofisan, will be holding forth on Ibsen, Africa and the whole question of the adaptation of non-African plays for African audiences.

The next three days will consist of a workshop by theatre practitioners from various African countries, who have performed or created versions of or plays based on 'A Doll's House'. These countries include Mozambique, Malawi, Eritrea, Egypt, Cameroon, Kenya, Angola and South Africa.

With the support of the Norwegian Embassy in Harare CHIPAWO staged a number of commemorative events in 2006 on the occasion of the Ibsen Centenary, including an adaptation of Ibsen's 'Peer Gynt' by the New Horizon Theatre Company, entitled 'A Journey to Yourself'. In the following year again with the support of the Embassy New Horizon participated in a performance with music presentaytion at the Harare International Festival of the Arts to the 'Peer Gynt' Suite by Edvard Greig.

In 2008 New Horizon followed up with a production of 'A Doll's House' at the Reps Theatre Upstairs. This performance formed the foundation of the play that New Horizon will be presenting in Lusaka.

At the end of 'A Doll's House' (in the Zimbabwean adaptation) Norah staggers her husband, Tongoona, by telling him that she is leaving him. 'Why?' he asks.

Norah: When I was at home with my father, he told me what to think. If I thought differently I kept it to myself because he didn't like me to have ideas of my own. He used to call me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. Then when I came to live with you, I was simply transferred from daddy's hands to yours. You arranged everything the way you wanted it and so I went along with you - or at least I pretended to. My life in this house has been a pretence. I simply existed to perform tricks for you, You and daddy have sinned against me. It is your fault that I've made nothing of my life.

Tongoona: How can you be so ungrateful, Norah! How can you say you have not been happy here?

Norah: No, I have never been happy. I thought I was, but I wasn't. This home has been nothing but a Doll's House. I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was father's doll-child; and here the children have been my dolls. That is what our marriage has been, Tongoona.

Before she leaves they have what she points out it is the first serious discussion in their marriage. In the end Tongoona realises that he is going to lose her and asks her if there is anything he can do for her to come back to him.

Tongoona: Norah, can I never be anything more than a stranger to you again?

Norah: Ah, Tongoona, the most wonderful thing of all would have to happen.

Tongoona: What would that be?

Norah: You and I would have to be so changed that...No, Tongoona, I don't believe any longer in wonderful things.

Tongoona: But I do. So changed that..?

Norah: That our life together would be a real marriage. Goodbye.

She goes.

Tongoona: (sinks down on the floor and buries his face in his hands). Norah! Norah! (Looks round, and rises.) Empty. Empty. She's gone. (Hope flashes across his mind) The most wonderful thing of all . . . ?

Auditions were held last week Wednesday and rehearsals start this coming week. The play that New Horizon will be developing will be an interrogation of Ibsen's play. It will be asking the question, what would happen - to Norah, to Tongoona, to 'the most wonderful thing of all' - if such a thing happened in contemporary Zimbabwe. How would Norah survive and fulfil her dream to be her own person? What could Tongoona do to change enough for Norah to accept him back? Would 'the most wonderful thing' be possible?

The play will be acted by two actors, a young man and a young woman. Memory Zidaka has been cast for the part of Norah. She has had lots of experience performing while still in CHIPAWO as a member of the Girl Power Centre as well as the Harare Youth Theatre. She also acted in the preview of 'Secrets of a Woman's Soul', CHIPAWO's adaptation of Lutanga Shaba's moving and courageous book.

Tongoona will be played by Tinevimbo Chimbetete, who, as another example of the versatility of CHIPAWO graduates, is the media technician in the organisation. He made waves when, still a little boy, he attended the Children's Forum and the United Nation's Special Session on Children in 2002 in New York, where he performed a play all by himself about AIDS and children in Zimbabwe. He has had some experience as well performing in various corporate and commissioned theatre productions in the youth Programme. He was a popular presenter at one time in Zimbabwe Television's Kidsnet.. I will be directing, partnered by Steve Chifunyise as dramaturge and a member of the Youth Programme, Charmaine Picardo, who will be auditing and assisting with co-ordination.

There will be a preview performance for an invited audience on 14th September, 2010, at the Bronte Hotel, Harare.

Steve and I will be making a presentation at the workshop in Lusaka on our experience in working on 'A Doll's House'.

The New Horizon Theatre is a youth professional theatre company based in Harare. Its members are graduates of CHIPAWO and its various performing groups. New Horizon is a project in the CHIPAWO Youth Programme. Its aim is to provide training at a professional theatre level, assist its members to earn money from their performances and ultimately establish careers in the theatre.

Its first and founding production was the 2002 classic about middle class poverty in Zimbabwe, "Vicious", by Stephen Chifunyise, This was followed by among others, "The Little Man of Murewa" (2005), based on a story by Hans Christian Andersen, "A Journey to Yourself " (2006), based on Henrik Ibsen's 'Peer Gynt', "Waiting for the Rain" (2006), adapted from the well-known novel of that name by by Charles Mungoshi, "Peer Gynt Suite - Music with Performance" (2007), music by Edvard Greig, "A Doll's House" (2006), by Henrik Ibsen, acted by the New Horizon Theatre Company and most recently "The Post Office" (2010) by the Indian Nobel prize-winner, Rabindranath Tagore.

In the first half of 2007, CHIPAWO Media launched a series of performances filmed on stage for television called Onstage. The series lasted for 18 months and New Horizon's entire repertoire was filmed and featured on Zimbabwe Television. The video of "A Journey to Yourself" was screened at the Ibsen Museum in Oslo earlier this year. .

The Directors Stephen Chifunyise is undoubtedly the foremost playwright in Zimbabwe, with many plays to his credit, a great many of which have been performed by different companies with great success all over Zimbabwe and a number of collections of his plays and stories have been published..

Robert McLaren has a long career in theatre in South Africa, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe as an actor, director, playmaker, academic and author. His published works include "South African People's Plays", "Making People's Theatre" and "Ngoma: approaches to arts education in Southern Africa".

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