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Bongani Ndlovu, Showbiz Correspondent
This year’s World Theatre Day celebrations in Zimbabwe had a different antagonist on stage, Covid-19, as thespians could not take part due to the banning of social gatherings.

World Theatre Day was supposed to be celebrated this past Friday, but due to the outbreak of Covid-19, those plans were dashed.

Like a play, the world is the stage and everyone is watching what Covid-19 will do. It holds the plot and like the play’s director, only it knows how this show will end, while it keeps the whole world at home in suspense waiting for the next scene.

However, this scenario is not an act by Covid-19 neither is it an escape from reality, but it is reality and the world is both the audience and actors.

Renowned playwright Raisedon Baya said even though he was disappointed about not celebrating World Theatre Day, he was more concerned that Covid-19 would affect the little gains theatre has made over the years.

“I’d planned to attend the inaugural Stephen J Chifunyise Theatre Festival in Harare, but it was cancelled like many planned arts events in the country and outside. I think to look at World Theatre Day alone would be an injustice.

“Covid-19 has, perhaps eroded all the theatre gains we had made for years. The little audiences we had managed to convert into theatre audiences will be gone. More painful is that for months or more, theatre artistes will have no jobs and are facing a bleak future,” said Baya who has written plays such as Fragile and The Taking.

He said as theatre practitioners, situations like these have however taught them to look at other ways of appealing to and growing their audience, like taking their works online.

“On a brighter side, this (lockdown) might teach us to re-think and plan better, how to do theatre events in the future. However, taking our works online comes with its own challenges as first, someone has to pay for the filming, then set up digital space and hope they get their money back. But how will people pay to watch online and are artistes willing to wait until someone pays for their work online,” quizzed Baya.

His colleague Thabani Moyo said Covid-19 has removed the essence of theatre which is the interaction between audiences and actors on stage.

“World Theatre Day is all about taking a friend, child or your family to the theatre with the objective of experiencing the atmosphere and interacting with the actors on stage as an audience. It is a campaign day for theatre but this time around, all theatres throughout the world were quiet. They were on a standstill as Covid-19 took centre stage,” he said.

Moyo who teaches high school pupils theatre said innovation was key for the survival of theatre in the coming years.

“It seems that Covid-19 has taught us to move with times and explore new ways of reaching out to our audiences.”

As for theatre actress, Nama-winning Charmaine Mudau who acted in Imbokodo, not being able to be on stage is frustrating.

“It was a sad World Theatre Day for me because I was supposed to perform at the Loziba Festival which was on that day,” she said.

To celebrate the day, she used social media to showcase her previous acts.

Mudau however said since events have been halted as a way to try and save lives, she is content with being at home.

“I’m passionate about what I do and if postponing performances and having to celebrate one of my best days indoors instead of the stage is a way of fighting Covid-19, then let the fight begin.

“I choose safety and life so that I can do more of these performances in the future when all this is over.”

When the curtain comes down on the Covid-19 show, the hope for most thespians is that their genre will not suffer and fail to rise from the hit that Covid-19 has inflicted.