Breaking The Pot - How it came to be..

The Norwegian Embassy approached Nanzikambe in 2004. The year after next was to be the Ibsen Centenary. Would we be able to adapt an Ibsen play for Malawi? Not yet another dry European story for the African community to swallow, I thought. Why cant we be funded to tell African stories, stories of urgent and real importance to the Malawian audience?

After these initial indignant, and perhaps ungrateful thoughts, I came to realise the fantastic possibilities within this proposition, and began, through discussion with our colleagues at the Embassy, to shape the scope of the project. The task we set ourselves was to undertake a reinvention of an Ibsen play for the African context. We embarked upon what was to be an extensive and riveting journey in to the world of Henrik Ibsen, and in to love and marriage in the Malawian home. Very quickly, my fellow artists at Nanzikambe and I were hooked.

To help us choose which play would be the most appropriate for Malawi, and for us to become better acquainted with the 'father of modern drama' we were funded to go on a research mission to Norway - to attend the Ibsen Festival at The National Theatre in Oslo. Here my close colleague Muthi Nhlema, and I saw countless productions - most in either Norwegian or German. The Malawian and the English girl became a little dazed.

It was through our discussions about the issues that are most pertinent to Malawian society that we found our way towards a decision. Ibsen writes about what he sees as being the ills beneath his society - power, greed, inequality, bigotry, corruption. His plays often attack entrenched beliefs and assumptions. It became clear that many of Ibsen's plays could be made applicable to Malawi.

To help us choose which play would be the most appropriate for Malawi, and for us to become better acquainted with the 'father of modern drama' we were funded to go on a research mission to Norway - to attend the Ibsen Festival at The National Theatre in Oslo. Here my close colleague Muthi Nhlema, and I saw countless productions - most in either Norwegian or German. The Malawian and the English girl became a little dazed.

It was through our discussions about the issues that are most pertinent to Malawian society that we found our way towards a decision. Ibsen writes about what he sees as being the ills beneath his society - power, greed, inequality, bigotry, corruption. His plays often attack entrenched beliefs and assumptions. It became clear that many of Ibsen's plays could be made applicable to Malawi.

We asked ourselves many questions during this process of choosing the play - the most pertinent being: in our own experience of life, here and now in Malawi, where is the greatest and most pervasive injustice?

In the end, the decision came from personal and strong sentiments expressed to me by Malawian friends and colleagues. The stories of consistent subordination of women within their families and the expressions of fear about the expectations placed by society upon men led us closer towards A Doll House. It was clear that there was a growing

discomfort amongst this particular group of artists at the cultural and social status quo. In all our discussions there was a strong underlying need to express a cry for a transformation in the relationship between men and women. We also felt strongly that after productions that provided fierce political debate by looking at the relationship between leaders and the people: Playing with Food, African Macbeth - it was time to look at more personal relationships, at love and marriage.

Ibsen's A Doll House portrays a couple trapped by the expectations that society places upon them. These expectations include the preconditioned gender roles that men and women must conform to, and fulfill. The story depicts a woman questioning her duty to her husband and seeking to escape the oppressive confines of her marriage. In so doing, it examines, in a profoundly meaningful and complex way, the social fabric that nourishes destructive gender stereotypes.

We were decided. A Doll House was to provide for us the perfect mechanism for placing love and marriage in Malawi under scrutiny.

To make the adaptation process richer, to provide insight in to the original Norwegian text and to deepen our artistic link between Norway and Malawi, we decided to approach Norwegian writers to see if they would be interested in collaboration. We were recommended a certain Karl Hoff, who has both a great interest in Ibsen, and experience working on theatre projects in different African settings.

Karl's role was to take care of Henrik Ibsen's original intentions and meaning during our journey in to the Malawian context. But he has brought much more to the process. Karl's openness, compassion, incisive and conscientious attention to detail, and passion for truth and justice has been of unquantifiable value.

In these early stages, we also conceived the wider scope of the project to include a longer and more detailed adaptation process, an accompanying documentary, performance training for local artists, publishing the adapted text and extending our audience by touring to places that have never received national theatre groups before.

HENRIK IBSEN >>