Breaking The Pot - Meaning of the play in Malawi

Women in Malawi experience a general subordinate status, and have limited access to the law and productive resources such as land, technology, credit, education, training, and formal employment. Gender-based inequalities directly and indirectly limit economic growth and diminish the effectiveness of poverty reduction efforts, they also make life in general much more painful and strenuous than is right and acceptable, for women across the country. The gender disparities that manifest themselves in all areas including the social, economic, political and cultural spheres throughout the 'public' domain, certainly stem from the 'private' world in the home.

Despite the notable steps forward in the area of , 'Gender development' is a relatively new priority for development discourses and activity in Malawi. Breaking the Pot is being dramatised here at a crucial time for women's rights: long awaited and crucial legislation, the Domestic Violence Bill and the Wills and Inheritance Act, is soon to be tabled in parliament; the media has recently been awash with the most vicious images and brutal stories of violence against women: their arms chopped off, their faces burnt, their eyes gouged out. It is clear that many changes must take place before women will be relieved of the fear caused by entrenched and oppressive cultural norms and values.

This production certainly hopes to provide much food for discussion and thought around the relationships people live out in marriage here in Malawi.

Questions to consider in the

• What would have to been different in order for the play to have a different ending?
  
• Do you judge Nora?
  
• How do you judge Mr Jere?
  
• What made you angry in the story?
  
• How do men relate to their sense of masculinity?
  
• Do men really want their women to feel subordinate to them?
  
• Is it possible to be really honest and truthful in a relationship?
  
• What do we hide from our closest partner?
  
• How do we theatricalise ourselves, play out 'roles' in our own lives?
  
• What would we 'sacrifice' for love?
  
• What do we understand love to be?
  
• How can men and women better understand one another?
  
• What fantasies do we have in relation to our husband or wives?
  
• What does it mean to be masculine?
  
• What does it mean to be feminine?
  
• Do we feel respected, as human beings?
• Do we really show 'respect' in ourrelationships?
  
• Do we really feel understood, by thoseclosest to us?
  
• Are we prepared to change?
  
  post-show discussion:

"This play that calls for a radical transformation not just, or not even primarily, of laws and institutions, but of human beings and their ideas of love." Toril Moi "First and Foremost a Human Being":

Idealism, Theater and Gender in
A Doll's House, 2006

Dramatising. . .

The detailed work with the actors has been based upon activating the 'inner life' of these characters: focussing on unearthing the 'sub-text' beneath the words themselves
- always asking, what is really going on here? What are these people really doing? What does Nora really mean and want when she shows Jere the nice and cheap things she has bought for Christmas? The representation you will experience today is the result of a long rehearsal process of many exercises and discussions that have intended to pinpoint the precise and essential action under the text.

In order to emphasise the role that society and the past play in the Jere's lives, we have placed the sitting-room, and indeed the story within a space, intended to represent 'the context'. The chorus, who perform an originally composed soundtrack and provide an additional emotional underscore, also represent the context in which this marriage takes place. They express the social and cultural pressures placed upon both men and women to live out their lives according to rigid roles, and oppressive power structures. They also express moments from the past in order to take care of Nora's full story.

Common responses to Nora, in Malawi, as we have developed the text:

• She is a manipulator.
  
• She is not obedient.
  
• Jere forgave her, she should have stayed!