Two cows and much praise for writer and fighter Mhlanga

Workshop Negative

Image by Gate Theatre

Workshop Negative is about 1984 Zimbabwe – and post-referendum Britain, though that would have been a surprise to writer Cont Mhlanga.

“I fell in love with this play as soon as I read it,” recalls Anna Coombs, artistic director of the British group Tangle (“international theatre for local people”), which presents it at London’s Gate Theatre this week. 

Though the play grew from the fiery, rooted-in-the-people group Amakhosi through controversial “discussion theatre” sessions with audiences in the turmoil of post-independence Zimbabwe, Coombs says it is relevant to issues in Britain today: “Often local plays are truly universal. Everyone who voted recently should come and see it.

“It makes a lot of bold points, especially about racial tension.

“It expresses humanity and the strengths and weaknesses of human nature in a way I’ve always wanted,” she says. “I’ve never seen anyone who understands human nature like Cont.

“It asks how you build or re-build a community that’s broken – what do we have to give up, what do we have to change?

“It’s uplifting and blackly comic, funny and profound,” she adds. 

The play was born in controversy. The government hated its portrayal of hypocritical and corrupt leaders and blocked Amakhosi’s plan to take it on tour to Botswana and Zambia. Coombs says Mhlanga was threatened with having the fingers of his right hand cut off.

Undeterred, he and the group he set up in 1982 continued, grew and flourished, establishing a cultural hub, winning awards, going on foreign tours, branching into radio and TV series. Mhlanga has been called The Grandfather of theatre in Zimbabwe. Coombs describes him as “one of the world’s greatest theatre-makers”.

He is now farming. Coombs says that when Tangle discussed his fee for this production, he asked to be paid in cows. The two cows have now calved, she says, “so we both feel it’s paid off.”

* Workshop Negative is at the Gate Theatre, 11 Pembridge Road, W11, until 9 July. Info: 7229 0706/ http://www.gatetheatre.co.uk/