Manifestations of State Censorship in Zimbabwean-Written Plays and Performances

Abstract

The paper focuses on the legal banning and prohibition of plays and/or theatre productions, and, in extreme cases, the arrest and harassment of artists in Zimbabwe by a variety of state actors and instruments, which include the Board of Censors, the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe, the police, and, in some cases, local politicians of the ruling party, ZANU PF. Citing concrete historical examples of such cases, the paper illustrates how these state actors and/or instruments have been used to suppress content in both play scripts and/or performances. I argue that although there was play and performance censorship in the 1980s and 1990s, play bans, performance prohibitions, and harassment of artists rapidly increased during the crisis decade (1998–2008) in Zimbabwe and the life of the Government of National Unity (GNU). Using a combination of interviews and carefully selected and documented case studies of eight plays and/or performances, the paper arrives at the conclusion that there is no one narrative that can be deduced from looking at the prohibition of plays and/or performances and the arrest of artists. However, one common feature that was confirmed was that in most of the documented cases it was the performance that was banned and not the play script. In addition, it emerged that even after the Board of Censors had cleared some play scripts, the police, working alone or in association with local politicians, stopped and/or banned some performances.