ALTHOUGH I did not hear the three Zambia Adjudicators’ Panel (ZAP) judges namely, Freda Nkonde, Bright Banda and their team leader Norah Mumba complain about the basics of performances during the NATAAZ theatre festival last week – I generally feel the quality and ability of directing and acting was far above the run-of-the-mill and median.

I wished this was the time, Sharon Stone; a friend of mine who I met in the UK at Fairmead School was in Zambia to experience our local plays and see for herself the high calibre of acting.

Briefly; Sharon is engaged in health theatre and visits schools lecturing through music, dance and exercise. I tasted part of her workshop at Fairmead two years ago.

Sharon usually visits West Africa. How I wish she could have visited Zambia at the time we were having a theatre festival. Perhaps come 2014 during the next NATAAZ festival in September!

Sorry for digressing, however, back to the NATAAZ festival; last week I looked at three performances; Mufulira Arts Council’s Consequences (and not Confusion as I wrongly entitled the play), ZANASE’s Your Sister Talks too much and The Will performed by Africa Directions.

To me, all the play performances were outstandingly exclusive and distinctive in their own ways. In a long time, I thought if I were an adjudicator, I would have had problems with which play I should have put my fingers on.

Matero theatre’s Brothers at Crossroads by Bizwell Mudenda and Fred Ching’andu’s The Breaking Pot performed by Chingola Arts Society, the latter won several awards for the hard work they engaged themselves in as a club. Chingola has generally taught the local theatre fraternity the commitment to the performing arts – there are many lessons to learn from CAS.

Brothers at Crossroads

is a farce, an enthralling and alluring drama; two brothers live ordinarily, one gets married, the other for some inexplicable reason and offence is arrested and imprisoned until seven years later when he is released and comes to claim his brother’s wife as one he betrothed and impregnated before he went into prison!

The story sounds unreal to me, but the general acting was marvellous and impressive with Mainza Siafwa appearing as a darling to the audience. The child actor was so realistic; one would be forced to feel she should take up acting for a career.

In a snap interview the young girl told me this was not her first acting role in a play, but that she had featured in a play performed by Matero early this year A Fig Tree in the Wrong Field.

The Breaking Pot stole the limelight among the adjudicators with a cast that was considered typically above the middling and was a marvel to watch claiming in total six awards.

Playing Samuel, the youthful and energetic Felix Mwenda was voted best actor alongside club mate Vera Natasha Kamanga who played Janet and won as best actress. Another CAS member Abigail Chirwa as Tamara took the mettle as the best supporting actress.

Directed by Raymond Kombe Kaoma who was designated as the best director Breaking Pot is a story recounting the discernment of traditional customs over a married couple in line with estimated expectations. The play excites the notion that children were the essence of marriage, hence Tamara’s snobbery behaviour when she stays for eight years without a child.

Lucky Phiri as Kabova from Africa Directions theatre’s play The Will by Erick Kasomo was voted the best supporting actor while eleven year-old grade seven schoolgirl Mainza Siafwa as Lulu in Bizwell Mudenda’s Brothers at Crossroad by Matero theatre group won the cameo award.

With Breaking Pot as the best production, Africa Directions’ The Will came second with the Zambia National Service’s Your Sister Talks Too Much by Light Musonda in third place.

Green Buffaoes’ Not for the Faint Hearted won the best costume award, while the best set and sound went to Africa Directions’ The Will.

Mufulira Arts Council with Consequences bagged home advantage and walked away with the best light award even though Freda Nkonde lamented on the general poor state of stage lights saying something should urgently be worked out as the stage remained dimly lit for most plays. Freda said facial expressions remained unnoticed due to the dark sheds.

On the whole the three adjudicators were not doubtfully of low esteem, but were with perceptible record; Bright Banda is a renowned director with several bags of awards and is the author of Come Away with Me among them the 2009 and 2010 Ngoma awards as best director, while Freda Nkonde is the doyen and veteran theatre guru as director at Nkana-Kitwe Arts Society.

I vividly remember 28 years ago Nkonde’s energy-sapping South African musical Ipi Tombi in 1985 in addition to several involvement in big productions.

It is the unsung Norah Mumba who catalogued the pros and cons of the festival underscoring that weaknesses in all the plays were synonymously common.

A novelist and playwright of repute, a retired University of Zambia librarian, Norah is the author of A Song in the Night and the highly acclaimed radio play The Birthday Party – a play that won an award in Germany.

Among other works, she has edited several manuscripts and published Heart of the Woman, Short Stories from Zambia and The Fire Next Time, a short story assembled in Nobody Ever said AIDS among other publications.

Norah is the founding president of the Zambia Women Writers Association in 1992 – 1998. She chaired the National Theatre Resources Project 1997 – 2001 and was president of the Zambia Adjudicators Panel 2002 – 2006, and served on the planning committee for the creation of the National Arts Council (NAC) 1992 – 1994 and has served on the NAC board as a member twice 1996 and 2009.

Out of the eleven theatre groups that confirmed participation in the NATAAZ festival Eric Kasomo, the Secretary General established the absence of the groups was unfortunate. Notable absentees were NAPSA, Khomo Lathu Media, Kabwe Arts Theatre, Nkana-Kitwe Arts Society (NKAS), Lusaka Playhouse and Zhaninge theatre group.

Surprisingly, the group has ready plays; NAPSA had The Hunter of God, Khomo Lathu (Books, Bread and Roses), Kabwe Arts (Child of Dust), NKAS (What Tomorrow May Bring) Lusaka Playhouse had What Corruption You Bastard we must Eat and Zhaninge’s Sanadye, leaving the pertinent questions unanswered; where did things go wrong for the groups to miss the festival?

Perhaps come 2014, groups should stretch their begging bowls early enough and submit their budgets to their heads of departments and whoever sponsors for serious attention otherwise the efforts; time and energy which the theatre artistes put in in preparations and rehearsals, virtually and morally was solely misused and wasted.

Has this support and sustenance for theatre got to do with the heads of departments’ lack of passion and appetite for theatre or it is sheer negligence in theatrical activities? Why then has the Zambia Army backing of the Green Buffalos theatre and the Zambia National Service theatre groups done so well? The Zambia Army and ZNS headquarters need citation and honour for supporting theatre not only for this year, but all along from the past. Others needing recommendation are Mopani Copper Mines, Chingola Arts Society and Africa Directions as a non-governmental organisation.

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I was blessed on Christmas day to receive my old good friend Wilbroad Sosa, a playwright with his son-in-law Teddyson Ngomi, a Swazi and writer based in Swaziland.

Teddyson and I conversed at length about short story and book writing and the poor reading culture both in Zambia and Swaziland, nevertheless we agreed to work together and compile ten short stories – five between each of us for possible publication come June 2014.

Teddyson has published Sorrows of the Mountain Teacher, a story based on a victimised teacher following his suspicious affair with a woman seemingly claimed to have had another lover.

The Swazi said while the story was fiction, the theme reflected real occurrences. His second publication The Scorpion Assignment is underway been published in the USA.

Teddyson’s latest draft is The Temple of Kanongesha, a story about the life in Mwinilunga, Zambia based on the area paramount chief. And Sosa has expressed interest to dramatize the book stories saying though he has turned to pastoring the word of God, script writing was still his favourite part of drama.

Sosa is the author of the award winning Mukhuzya Where is my Child, Battle of Two Worlds and many other scripts during the time when Chipata’s Bayete Nkosi, Ndola Lime and Zamsure were dynamically active.

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I was in Chingola a fortnight ago courtesy of Chingola Arts Society for the Banham Awards. The event was held amid pomp and splendour except for the wet weather so not so many people braved the weather to attend the awards.

Folk music icon Pontiano Musenge Kaiche as the master of ceremonies tickled us with humorous jokes and clips of his music and play excerpts from The Breaking Pot and Not with my Daughter.

CAS awarded its members who had outshined throughout 2013, except Clement Muyasani, the club chairman bemoaned the failure by the club from sticking to the six plays the club has always projected, instead only three plays were staged during the year; The Breaking Pot, The Monkey is not Stupid and Not with my Daughter. This was attributed to many factors.

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I am wishing all the readers of this column a Prosperous New Year and hope they all had a joyous Christmas last week. Take good care as we begin the new Year 2014.

John.kapesa818@yahoo.co.uk – 0955-0967-0977-710975