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HIFA: A personal account - Performing The Vagina Monologues
Sarah Kilalea
May 15, 2005

For those who didn't get to see it, the Vagina Monologues is a life affirming, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant look at women's sexuality and sexual experiences. Eve Ensler, one of the most liberated and loving playwrights of our time has compiled this true collection of women's monologues, ranging from the heart warming stories of first love to the horrifically abusive ones of genital mutilation and rape, both as children and adults. She shows us the strength of these women to carry on and live another day.

As a drama student in London we used to perform a V-day production of the Vagina Monologues every year to raise money for charity (V-day productions are altered slightly with a couple of younger women monologues thrown in and the rights for this fabulous play are free!).

After one of these productions I got in touch with Manuel Bagorro and suggested we bring the Vagina Monologues to HIFA. We eventually managed it this year! I knew the ride was never going to be easy. Knowing what the censorship board are like here, I only submitted what I thought were the tamest of the monologues. "My vagina was my village" about the rape of an Afghani woman and "The Flood" about an 80-year-old woman who's never had sex.

Walter Mapurutsa called me soon after to say that the censors had banned us from performing, giving the reasons that the play was 'obscene and pornographic'. Walter and Manuel said not to panic, that we should continue rehearsing and that they were sure they could sort this out.

Obviously we were a little worried. With Manuel on one side saying we would do the play anyway, the censors breathing down Walter's neck and the Vagina girls stuck in the middle. I wasn't overly worried about ending up in prison for a couple of nights,
(it looks great on the acting CV- being put in prison for doing Vagina Monologues) but mainly because it was my dream to bring some worthwhile theatre home, to rock the boat and challenge the way people think. I was willing to face the consequences of my actions.

I was more worried about my other actresses. Tendesai Bakasa is a drama teacher at Arundel and they couldn't even say the word Vagina when they heard what Tendesai was doing at HIFA. She became known as the girl doing "The Monologues". If she'd been arrested, she would have lost her job and the uproar from the parents about their children being taught by a pornographic convict would have been huge. Caitlin Felsman has just got into Tufts University in Boston and they would have cancelled her acceptance if she had a criminal record. So we carried on rehearsing, in fear and trepidation, but also with a lot of excitement, still not knowing if we were rehearsing for a reason.

Then the HIFA office and Walter pulled their trump card. Walter went to the censors and told them that if "The Monologues" were banned then we would be one of the only African countries to have stopped this production and that they would have to explain to Joyce Mujuru why they were embarrassing her in front of the rest of Africa by making a clear statement that our Zimbabwean women were oppressed! In typical Zimbabwean style everyone denied responsibility so the Vagina Monologues slipped through the cracks as long as we kept advertising to a minimum.
We didn't need to advertise! The play was on everyone's lips and sold out before HIFA even began!

So the HIFA opening came around and Vagina Monologues was all set to go. We had our beautiful, topless male ushers at the door in tuxedo trousers and bowties to set the mood. We'd compiled a CD of great women's songs we entitled 'Happy Pussy Music' playing loudly in the background. Big red lips adorned the stage and we were off!

Needless to say the performance went down fantastically. The audience were nervous to say the least but by the end they seemed to have fully embraced the fact that they were women and women are beautiful. Strangely enough we had a lot of men in the audience and they are the ones who now approach me in the streets saying how much they loved the show. Go Zimbabwe, welcome to the 21st century!

Anyway, on Thursday The Herald published a review of the play entitled 'Audience enthralled by unbelievable antics'. It wasn't a bad write up but we evidently shocked the whole of The Herald to its very core. They were genuinely amazed that we had staged a production of the Vagina Monologues in Zimbabwe and said 'perhaps in a similar unlikelihood, snow will one day heavily fall on Harare.'

Well, the next day the censors were phoning the HIFA office threatening arrest, not just of us but also of Manuel, Walter and the whole of HIFA and talking of shutting the festival down. Now, the HIFA staff is a feisty bunch and Maria Wilson and Walter quickly diffused the situation by mentioning Joyce Mujuru’s name again. Walter also agreed to have a reprimanding meeting with them after the festival. So Saturday rolls around and we have decided to do two back-to-back performances to accommodate the hundreds of people who couldn't get tickets.

As we're doing our technical rehearsal, joking around with the lighting guys, a white man comes in a sits down with them, already looking totally shocked by the language of the snippets of monologues we are reading. He introduces himself as Steve and says he's from the BBC and he would like to interview us for the world service. Great, we all think. So he watches as a camera crew set up, a photographer starts snapping and we do two packed out performances.

Suddenly we feel like mini celebrities. So he interviews me afterwards and Walter warns me not to mention the censors in any way, so we don't and we record snippets of the monologues in a cupboard - it's quieter in there - for the world service.

Then Walter comes up to me. ''Sarah, you know you were almost arrested tonight". "What?!" Apparently during the second performance, four policemen arrived outside the hall with a warrant for our arrest. Just as Walter was trying to calm them down, we were inside getting the audience to shout 'CUNT' at the top of their lungs, which didn't seem too help matters.

Walter took the stand of 'ok, someone sign this warrant, arrest them and then I'm taking that name directly to Joyce Mujuru . . . who wants to sign it? No one? Ok then leave the girls alone.'

So the Zimbabwean mentality of "I am not the one" enabled us to sail through HIFA without being arrested, charged or accosted in any way. I couldn't believe it. And did we ever have fun!

Money from the t-shirt sales went to Zimbabwean women's charities and I think we helped women in Zimbabwe of all ages, colour and creed to feel proud of being simply that. Women! 

You can listen to the BBC interview online at the BBC on a programme called ARTBEAT.

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