Within Western drama and theatre performance scholarship, there is commonly a delineation between work which is defined as ‘commercial’ or ‘mainstream’ - such as festival, regional and touring, or West-End productions (which largely adhere to the formula of a director-led, company-produced play where audiences buy tickets, and where the work can garner critical acclaim and acquire cultural capital) - and ‘applied theatre’ (Prentki, 2006: 142, 147).įorms of drama such as theatre in education, community drama, drama for social and political change and, importantly for this chapter, Theatre for Development (TfD), which has also been described as ‘Popular Theatre, Community Based Theatre’ (Plastow, 2014: 108). This chapter highlights how, within the preliminary explorative workshops and during the subsequent rehearsals, Shakespeare study converged with contemporary Malawian and European performance forms to create a rich learning environment for all involved in the process.
In so doing, the transformative impact for the Malawian actors engaged within this intercultural theatre experiment will be highlighted and the delineation between what is classified as ‘applied’, and that which is not, will be challenged.īy interrogating the methods and modes of working during our workshops, this chapter will highlight how the dialogical rehearsal practice used led to the following results: an empowering process for the actors, a furthering of the performative possibilities of serious drama in Chichewa, and the possibility of a production of a Shakespeare play that would be firmly grounded within the Malawian cultural landscape. Applied theatre is a homogenising term for drama/theatre for therapeutic or educational purposes, as distinct from that of commercial enterprise or ritual performance.This chapter explores and examines some ways in which Malawian student actors from Chancellor College of the University of Malawi and Mzuzu University harnessed contemporary performance practices in Malawi, including Chichewa popular drama, to explore Stanley Onjezani Kenani s Chichewa translation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (Romio ndi Julieti) in 20.
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