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Dambudzo Marechera’s work is normally regarded as modernist. Modernism is a Western label to describe a multitude of transgressions against Bourgeois Illusionistic theatre or simply dramatic theatre.

These transgressions took different forms in different countries and were called Dadaism in Switzerland, Surrealism in France, Expressionism in Germany, Constructivism in Russia and absurdism on different continents. Of course, since African theatre from the beginning of times was never Aristotelian these transgressions were already known to us by the time western modernists were travelling all over Asia and Africa to find new forms to re-energise their theatre.

The spark to these artistic changes, among other things, was the events of the two world wars. Young expatriate artists who ran away from the First World War, such as Ball, Hennings, Hudsenbeck, Tzara, Janco and Arp stationed themselves in peaceful Switzerland.

They were dissatisfied with the Bourgeoisie who started the war and sent the poor and working class sons to die for them. There was a distrust of their culture, ideas, reason and artistic standards which the modernists wanted to subvert. The absurdist movement responded to the carnage of the wars with images of decadence, hopelessness, nihilism and purposelessness of life and man.

The privileging of science and the birth of a new human religion — humanism — meant that what used to be attributed to God could be solved through science and human knowledge (pragmatism). If science and reason could solve problems then God was no longer relevant or “he had died” as one Nietzsche’s characters, Zarathustra, opined.

Throughout ages when the Catholic Church used to play an important part in the life of every Westerner, the principles of God were at the centre of their culture and practice. The privileging of science in the mid-20th century meant that the truth of God became relative. Europe became a post-Christian continent where life was lived without a generally accepted integrating principle based on the laws of God. It became a continent of multiple truths which today we call post-modernism.

As such the theatre of the absurd fulfilled a vital purpose and presented its audience with an absurdity — the absurdity of the human condition in a world where the decline of religious belief had deprived humanity of certainties. When it is no longer possible to accept complete closed systems of values and revelations of divine purposes life must be faced in its stark reality.

Theatre of the absurd presents this stark reality so that man may change his ways. The theatre of the absurd is intent on making its audience aware of humanity’s precarious and mysterious position in the world. This theatre does so not through a plot based story, but a pattern of poetic images that produce an essence.

Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle that ended with a ceasefire in 1979 was one of the bloodiest and most prolonged war in the world. Marechera derived his inspiration from the aftermaths of this war by creating two characters, Robin, who fought on the side of the colonial army and Rhodes, who was part of the liberation forces.

Does it, therefore, mean that Marechera is aping Western playwrights? Marechera was an avid reader; it is possible that he was inspired by absurd playwrights such as Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Harold Pinter, Jean Genet, Albert Camus, Jean Paul Sartre, Arthur Adamov and others. There are many ways to explain Marechera’s choice of absurdism as a style.

Each experience produces its own style. The liberation war produced the agit prop and pungwe style of performance. It is reasonable to argue that the effects of the war, naturally compelled Marechera to investigate its psychological ramifications which manifested as madness, hallucinations, insomnia etc. No one has exclusive rights to these diseases as sources of writing and Marechera simply relied on what he saw in the streets and wrote his absurd plays.

Marechera himself lived an absurd life sometimes attributed to his unstable mind. He tried to burn down Oxford University while he was studying there and was given an option of undergoing psychiatric treatment or expulsion.

He chose the latter. One could argue that he was mentally unstable and relied on this condition to create work that we receive as absurd theatre.

The roots of modernism, of which absurdism is a part of, are not Western. Modernism derives its existence from appropriating cultural and material production of Asians and Africans and denying the appropriation. Modernism cannibalised African and Asian forms. Modernists like Jacques Copeau, Bertolt Brecht, Jerzy Grotowski, Edward Gordon Craig, Max Reinhardt, VsevolodMeyerhold, Antonin Artaud, Mnouchkine, Barba, Peter Brook travelled to the non-western world scouring for cultural performances in order to re-theatricalise what Knowles calls the “the decadent western tradition”.

We have evidence that African theatre was never Aristotelian; it has always been symbolic, abstract, non-linear and, in many cases, metaphysical. Absurd theatre, for me, is a return to the origins of theatre — the confrontation of humanity and its precarious position in a universe ruled by deities. Whereas in the old African theatre of rituals the deities were known, theatre of the absurd presents a world where God is dead and there is no accepted system of values. In that world, there is chaos and man must do something to get himself out of that quagmire.

If rational thought and science have produced the world’s worst disasters, then absurd theatre mocks rational thinking by subverting language. The opening of Marechera’sThe Alley (1994) substantiates this claim.

When Rhodes wakes up he speaks to himself. His monologue is not a well thought out piece that develops a single idea. It is a typical example of psychic automatism whereby the written word is generated in a manner that reflects the actual functioning of thought unsupervised by reason except out of aesthetic or moral concern.

In the first sentence, Rhodes talks about the cold weather and then shifts to rats looking down at his nose. He then moves to the idea of time and how he does not know it. Rhodes suddenly remembers that his friend, Robin will be coming back to join him from Chikurubi prison. Finally, he comments on the rats that try to nibble his ears and toes when he is fast asleep. This shift from one idea to another in a single monologue causes discontinuity and fragmentation that constantly threaten logic and rationality.

The other quality of Marechera’s language is repetition. Repetition is not meant to move the story forward, but to cause stasis and insult to linear progression. In scene 1 of The Alley, an offstage bin empties its content on Rhodes covering him completely. When Rhodes emerges from the muck, Robin and Rhodes have an interesting verbal exchange:

Robin . . .Rhodes! It’s you (hurls the Bible at Rhodes). You all the time

Rhodes: Me all the time

Robin: You all the time (winces). You’re the one behind the wall

Rhodes: The one behind the wall

Robin: (hysterically): I’ve see you in my dreams. You’ve been the shadow all the time

Rhodes: Been the shadow

Robin: You spied on me. You told them. You black bastards are all the same. (Picks up rubbish, throws it at Rhodes who does not duck)

Rhodes: Black bastards are all the same.

(Marechera 1994, p. 39)

Rhodes is following Robin’s train of thought and repeating everything that Robin says. Language becomes a game that is not meant to rationally communicate, but to occupy the characters’ time.

The circularity and repetitious nature of language reinforces the lack of ontological meaning in life. Aware of the rational limitations of language, Marechera makes a virtue of this to return language to a poetic structure whose meaning lies not in its intellectual force, but in its sound, melody, rhythm and imagistic impact. — Panorama Magazine.