Keeping Communities in Spontaneity Working on their Feet: The Concept of Acceleration in Applied Theatre Practice

Keneth Bamuturaki*

Abstract

When working with Applied Theatre, the facilitator is always challenged to move the participants and keep them at the level of working on their feet. Sitting positions are normally discouraged because they decelerate the process. When the process is imbued with urgency, collective creation, action, passion and effective participation, it normally exhibits a sense of energy and acceleration. This, in most cases, produces the desired transformation/empowerment of community. On the other hand, when the process is slowed, lacking in enthusiasm, passion and energy, it is normally difficult to effectively engage the community, let alone, move them to the direction of strategizing for community action. This article draws from my engagement with theoretical literature on the practice of Applied Theatre in Africa, particularly Theatre for development (TfD), as well as from my recent practice-based research in Uganda from 2015 to date to discuss the significance of acceleration in applied theatre. This article argues that from the inception of Theatre for Development (TfD) practice in Africa, practitioners have aimed to implement a collectively engaging and transformative process. The ideal TfD process in Africa has been one in which participating communities are set in motion, working together to create and perform theatre. The term “ideal” is used deliberately, as although practitioners aspire to implement an engaging and dynamic process, most projects have not succeeded in achieving this goal. Drawing on practice-based experience in TfD, this article further argues that when acceleration is privileged, the result is effective engagement and empowerment of participating communities.

Keywords: applied theatre, spontaneity, agency, collective learning, empowerment, liminality, pace, speed

Introduction

This article explores the question how applicable is the concept of acceleration to applied theatre practice? This article draws on theoretical engagement with the practice of Theatre for Development (TfD), one of the applied theatre forms in Africa, as well as on recent experience of TfD practice in Uganda from 2015 to the present, to examine the significance of acceleration in applied theatre. Using the Kamiriithu theatre project in Kenya, it argues that from the inception of TfD practice in Africa, a successful TfD programme has been one that is effectively accelerated, engendering passion, energy, agency, movement, and collective community action toward widespread empowerment.

It further contends that the ideal TfD process in Africa has been one that emerges from the inner impulses and passions of the community, where participants are set in motion, working collaboratively to create and perform theatre. Drawing on practice-based experience as a TfD practitioner in the Walukuba community theatre project, the discussion demonstrates that when the process is driven by passion, energy, and collective effort—that is, when it is accelerated—the result is effective engagement and empowerment of participating communities.

The article begins by explicating the concept of acceleration in both live theatre and TfD (or applied theatre), demonstrating that the concept assumes different forms across these contexts.

The Concept of Acceleration in Conventional Theatre and Applied Theatre

In live traditional theatre which is performed in professional theatre spaces, with professional actors, technical staff and audience, the concept of acceleration relates to the speed of movement of actors and objects on the stage. This movement is both physical and intellectual, implying that it happens both in real and in imagined terms. The concept refers to stage presence and combat, which not only has to do with the movement of actors and bodies on the stage, but also the actors’ imagination and the audience’s own emotional journeys. The actors are always on an emotional and physical voyage, making every effort to embody the characters and have them translated from the philosophical thoughts of the playwright into real persons living in the here and now (Binnert 23). As such, acceleration may refer to the level of energy used by the actors in the pursuit of objectives on stage and the intensity of the conflict running in their inner being.

The concept further refers to the pace of the action and dialogue on the stage, the factors shaping this pace, as well as how the audience responds to and adapts to this pace. It is vital to point out however that while speaking of acceleration in live performance we cannot forget to speak about its reverse meaning, namely, deceleration. In live climatic plot performance, the performance does not progress at the same speed or level. In the exposition when the performance introduces the characters, the setting and the theme, there is always a slow pace inherent in the script, but it is also shaped by the artistic director. The pace or speed increases as the crises and complications in which the protagonist and other characters find themselves multiply. This increases to the level of the climax and decelerates in the denouement as the performance revolves the action to apportion poetic justice to the persons in the play.

Speaking in the natural or physical science parlance, the concept of acceleration in live theatre and performance conjures scientific conceptualizations such as velocity/speed, mass, weight, friction, displacement, time. The modern theatre space is mechanized allowing effective movement of objects on the stage. Objects, including actors, propelled by an electrified stage can be set to move from the loft to the stage and vice versa, creating the magic of performance.

In October 2025, as a Fulbright visiting African scholar at the University of Michigan, I attended the performance of the musical theatre play, Cabaret at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre where I witnessed the magic fostered by stage mechanization and acceleration. I became aware that a lot of preparation had been invested in realizing the show. During the performance of the Cabaret, the stage space was well constructed to accommodate the music orchestra, the scenic designs, the dancers and the actors. The musicians were positioned at the very back of the stage. Although partially obscured from the audience by a transparent glass curtain, they still performed in full view.

The performers, who included the speaking/singing actors and the dancers, used the front stage and the centre stage so that the audience enjoyed a full view of the performance. It was clear to me that the stage was well mechanized to foster accelerated scene change. There was a well-built set house, arguably the club house from which scene properties such as the beds mechanically moved back and forth to the stage. Actors, especially the main actors, moved in and out of this scene house.

The majority of the actors came to the stage via the stairs of the stage wings. In short, the stage was used well to support flexible and effective movement and performance. The lighting design was carefully programmed to blend seamlessly with the various scene changes and moods on stage. The fly system was well mechanized and accelerated to foster scene location. The Kit Kat Club signage would fly out of the fly loft. To say the least, all aspects of theatre making blended together to produce a complete accelerated theatre experience.

As a result, the concept of acceleration has great implications on the considerations which directors, scenic designers, sound designers and light designers have to make in planning the movement of objects on stage. It is not surprising that theatre engineers such as Alan Hendrickson and Colin Buckhurst have envisioned the theatre design process in terms of Newton’s laws of motion (1-3). They discuss four equations of constant acceleration which can be used to calculate motion parameters such as velocity, displacement and time in theatre spaces. The preoccupation with velocity, displacement and time concepts implies that theatre practitioners and actors have to be trained to be aware of the difference between mass and weight and the implication of these concepts in moving objects about the stage.

This article argues that the concept of acceleration—so prominent in conventional live theatre—takes on a different form and function in applied theatre contexts. By “applied theatre,” I refer to performance practices that take place outside traditional theatre spaces and prioritize intentionality over the quality of the performance or audience experience. It is often assumed that, because applied theatre emphasizes intention rather than the finished product, the concept of acceleration is not relevant to its success.

However, applied theatre finds itself entwined in notions of acceleration relating to urgency, creativity, action, passion, participation and liminality among others. In all these concepts, there is normally a semblance of greater speed. For example, in creativity and action, communities have to be set in motion working steadily towards theatre making and performance goals. In meaningful participation, all people in the community get involved in time and space working collectively to articulate issues through performance. In liminality, the participants of an applied theatre process are transported both emotionally and intellectually to other worlds. Applied theatre practitioners are often challenged by the need to accelerate practices such as community and group building, research, devising, and performance, while also responding to the urgency of developing action plans to address the issues explored through the theatre-making process.

The Kibito community building up to create theatre in 2019. Photo: Keneth Bamuturaki

Consequently, acceleration in applied theatre is more closely linked to the process of making applied theatre than to the performance event itself. While the applied theatre process may not aim to produce a good, aesthetically appealing play performance, the process calls for a high speed of passion, agency and collective energy of the participating community. In applied theatre, facilitators and members of the community are invited to a high level of energy, movement and urgency which always become necessary for a successful engagement process. When working with applied theatre, the facilitator is always challenged to invigorate the participants and keep them at the level of working on their feet. Sitting positions are normally discouraged because they decelerate the process.

When the process is imbued with urgency, collective creation, action, and effective participation, it tends to generate a strong sense of energy and acceleration. This, in turn, often leads to the desired transformation or empowerment of the community—the central objective of applied theatre practice. Conversely, when the process is slow and lacks enthusiasm, passion, and energy, it becomes difficult to engage the community effectively, let alone mobilize it toward strategizing for collective action.

The Concept of Acceleration in TfD Practice

The development of TfD over the past decades has been linked to the need to foster higher levels of acceleration or urgency in the engagement of communities in isolating issues affecting them through the medium of performance. TfD is an applied critical pedagogy-based approach of making and performing theatre which seeks to engage the participating communities in the process of analyzing their community needs, making theatre based on these needs and performing the theatre to themselves and the wider community (Mangeni 31; Epskamp 11; Chinyowa 2). The development of the concept of TfD as we know it today, is rooted in the Brechtian theatre techniques and the radical, revolutionary theatre practices of post war Europe (van Erven 21; Prentki 43-4). It is also rooted in the colonial exhortatory performances of British and French colonial Africa where externally packaged performances were used to educate the masses to initiate income generating activities and to fight diseases (Mlama 42; Kerr 72).

The challenge with the radical agitation and propaganda theatre practices in Europe and the colonial didactic use of theatre in Africa was that they lacked power and agency in fostering collective participation as they only engaged the communities by conducting a few interviews to gather material which they would use to devise and perform plays to the communities. The oppressed people in the community would not be part of the theatre making process since the plays would be devised by the theatre activists at secluded private centres. In short, they lacked the required level of acceleration which is achieved when the target communities participate passionately in collective theatre making and performance. For this reason, van Erven described such activists as cultural invaders of the community who entered the communities to interpret their challenges using their middle class oriented perspectives (21).

In the 1970s, however, triggered by new trends in the practice of development, TfD developed into a form which eschewed message-oriented exhortatory performances, made by external animators and developed into a process where animators sought to bring the communities at the centre of the theatre making process. In relation to the notion of greater speed implicit in acceleration, new trends in the practice of development called for increased urgency, collective action and empowerment of the participating communities. This new development was influenced by the participatory critical pedagogy theories of Paulo Freire in his seminal work Pedagogy of the Oppressed.^[1] While it can be rightly argued that Freire did not aim to propound a theatre and performance based theory, his work was admired and theatricalized by Agusto Boal in the Theatre of the Oppressed.^[2] Paulo Freire, I would argue, influenced by an earlier educational philosopher, John Dewey,^[3] sought to develop a system of education which would bring the learner at the centre of the teaching and learning process.

Consequently, Freire, wanting to invigorate the leaners so that they would become the centre about which the appliances of learning revolved, proposed a system of education he codenamed problem posing education or the co-intentional education for the oppressed in his native Brazil (70-90). He was dissatisfied by the old school where the learners played a passive domesticated role which made them incapable of contributing to the learning process. This system of education thought to transform the learners into critical thinkers, who engage with issues in ways that enable them to reflect on the world in order to transform it.

Augusto Boal, a contemporary of Freire, working almost at the same historical period with Freire adopted the latter’s concepts to transform the spectator in the theatre, who is the equivalent of the learner in Freirean educational contexts, into a protagonist, an active member of the theatre making process. He devised various forms and techniques, such as image theatre, simultaneous dramaturgy, and forum theatre, through which the spectator would, at different levels of engagement (which could be described as levels of acceleration in the Theatre of the Oppressed), be transformed from passivity into active participation.

In essence, Boal’s theatre of the oppressed offers a compelling example of how the concept of acceleration in applied theatre forms plays out in practice. In the theatre of the oppressed, the spectator is transformed into a spect-actor at varying levels of progression. The concept spect-actor implies that members of the community no longer play a merely passive role in the theatre making and performance process. Rather, they can intervene in the dramatic action in order to transform it and direct it towards articulating their issues. I argue that spect-acting is an energized accelerated process calling for energy, passion, agency and action, setting the community in motion, working on their feet.

In simultaneous dramaturgy, the spect-actor intervenes in the dramatic action by providing their stories which are actualized on stage by trained actors. In image theatre, the spect-actor intervenes more directly in the process by sculpting the bodies of other participants into creative images which articulate the problems of the community. In forum theatre, the spect-actor intervenes more directly in the action on the stage by replacing an actor in order to drive the action to a direction that articulates the challenges of the community.

The driving force of the forum theatre process is a joker whom Boal describes as the “difficultator” (Burns et al.140; Prentki 103; Prentki & Pammenter 11), signaling to the role he plays in keeping the forum theatre piece in some kind of a moving balance, confronting the actors to present the action truthfully but without resolving it and inviting the community or the spect-actors to intervene in the action to transform it.

Rather than making the process smooth in a way that eases the negotiating of the play devising process, the joker or the difficultator puts the obstacles of reality in the path of the playing process by provoking the participants, asking questions and offering understandings that stem from the research he/her has conducted about the subject of the play being devised (Prentki & Pammenter 12). The difficultator keeps the process in motion by blocking superficial solutions, inviting participants to try new solutions. The forum then continues, like a game or contest where the actors try to move the plot toward its conclusion, while the spect-actors—activated spectators—push it to another direction to articulate their social political and economic needs. (Burns et al. 140). Consequently, the Theatre of the Oppressed process is not static, but rather accelerated, always set in motion, with energized action from the actors and the community.

In the same way, the animator of the TfD process bears the grand responsibility of keeping the members of the participating community animated, working on their feet. Working as a facilitator in role, one who works as an enabler, while performing alongside the community, he has the duty of setting the community in motion and challenging them to engage in the process of theatre making as veritable partners on issues of collective concern.

An animator in Kibito working with the community to make theatre in 2019. Photo: Keneth Bamuturaki

It therefore follows that the hallmark of a well accelerated TfD process is an endogenous process, meaning a process stemming from community efforts and engineered by community passion, a pivot force for any successful TfD workshop (Prentki 41). This is opposed to an exogenous process where the energies driving the process come from outside the community (Mangeni 31; Chinyowa 11). Rather, it is a bottom-up process whereby making and performing theatre draws its impetus from the well perceived needs of the community. Such a process, drawing from Freire’s pedagogy, hinges on the facilitators love for the community and their respect for the knowledge and potentialities of the members of the participating community to forge and work out modalities of transforming their community problems.

Acceleration in TfD in Africa: The Kamiriithu TfD project

The Kamiriithu theatre programme of 1974 to 1980 has been acknowledged as an epitome of a well accelerated applied theatre process, one which was endogenous and bottom up, developing out of the organic impulses of the participating community. This article argues that the Kamiriithu TfD process is a good example where the participating community kept in motion, working collectively toward collective theatre making and performance goals. Whereas the Kamiriithu theatre programme was not initially envisaged as a TfD process, it has been popularly acknowledged as one of the most successful TfD projects in Africa (Kerr 240; Mlama 91).

According to David Kerr, the Kamiriithu theatre had its origins in an indigenous tradition of cultural resistance to colonialism and partly in the radicalization of intellectual popular theatre forms such as agitprop theatre and the University traveling theatre’s attempt to radicalize and present plays before popular audiences. The organizers became increasingly aware that theatre created by bourgeois intellectuals for the people could easily be co-opted by the ruling class (Kerr 240). Kamiriithu as a highly populated community arose from the Mau Mau struggle for national liberation during the 1950s when the British army created an emergency village in Kamiriithu to house Gikuyu peasants who had been uprooted from their homes (wa Thiongo 34). According to Ngugi Wamiiri, within the village stood a recreational centre, erected in the 1950s. At one time the local administration offered classes there, but that ended when these local government bodies were abolished. Eventually the centre evolved into an unkempt informal playground. However, in 1974 Njeeri wa Amoni, a community development officer organized a committee of villagers to revive the centre and named it the Kamirithu Community Educational and Cultural Centre (KCECC) (Byam 84).

The committee system operated in a very democratic way with a built-in system of self-criticism, so that even the poorest, least prestigious, most inarticulate member of the community could make his/her view heard (Kerr 242). The KCECC also established a system of regulations about the running of the centre. One of the most interesting collective decisions was the regulation prohibiting alcohol at the centre. Within a few weeks, Kamiriithu which had been previously notorious for drunkenness managed to cut down on alcohol consumption. Consequently, the villagers organized a management committee to explore ways of using the centre for recreational and educational purposes. This committee subsequently created several sub-committees chaired by community members to address issues such as health, culture and education. They resolved to offer programmes in adult education, cultural development, material culture and health with each programme stressing a collective decision-making process (Kerr 242). It is this organizational framework that facilitated the implementation of the Kamiriithu theatre project as a bottom-up, endogenous process of community engagement.

The bottom-up process was enhanced by an effective committee system that was established and led by the peasants themselves. Byam argues that “the committee approach allowed the villagers’ input at each stage, a feature that Freire defined as critical to the pursuit of liberation” (Byam 93). Ngugi wa Thiongo observes that “although the overall direction of the play was under Kimani Gecau, the whole project became a collective community effort with peasants and workers seizing more and more initiative in revising and adding to the script, in directing the movements on the stage…” 77).

The bottom-up approach to development stemmed from the fact that it was the community itself and not external catalysts that initiated and sustained the process. It was the community that saw the necessity of revamping the abandoned recreational centre and utilized it for the benefit of the community through adult education. Later, having revamped the centre, they invited some knowledgeable people to support them in their cause. The community’s own initiative to begin their own development is evidenced by Ngugi wa Thiong’o in the following testimony which articulates how he became part of what later was to be called Kamiriithu Community Education and Cultural Centre:

A woman from Kamiriithu Village came to my house and she went straight to the point. We hear you have a lot of education and that you write books. Why don’t you and others of your kind give that education to the village? We don’t want the whole amount; just a little of it, and a little of your time. … Would I be willing to help? … (34)

The bottom-up model of problem solving was enhanced by the fact that the problem-solving process was deeply rooted in the culture of the people, the indigenous Kenyan forms of performance, which had historically been part and partial of the Kenyan community way of life. The traditional performance forms and idioms helped animate and accelerate the process. To emphasize the significance of the traditional forms of performance in the theatre process of Kamiriithu, Ngugi wa Thiong’o writes that

In Ngaahika Ndeenda, we tried to incorporate song and dance as part of the structure and movement of actors. The song arises from what has gone before, and it leads to what follows. The song and dance become a continuation of the conversation and of the action. (45)

Furthermore, the very people who suffered oppression and exploitation participated collectively in the creative process. The peasants collaborated and created the story line for the play Ngaahika Ndeenda (I will marry when I want). They then invited Ngugi wa Thiongo and Ngugi wa Miiri who created the play based on the people’s historical experiences. Byam posits that “the play I Will Marry When I Want was written in Kikuyu language and continued to develop with co-operation of the community” (89). She also notes that, “though credit has been assigned to Ngugi wa Thiongo and Ngugi Wamiiri for authorship of Ngaahika Ndeenda, both authors have acknowledged the significant contribution that people of Kamiriithu made to the creation of the play” 89). Ngugi wa Thiongo observes that “what we created was an outline of the script (a task which took close to five months to complete), which the villagers substantiated” (76). The Kamiriithu Project was well animated and accelerated to the extent the community experimented with the actors and the acting process.

Ngugi wa Thiongo writes that people could see how the actors evolved from the time they could hardly move their legs or say their lines to a time when they could talk and move about the stage as if they were born talking those lines or moving on that stage (57). He further observed that some people in fact were recruited into the acting team after they had intervened to show how such and such a character should be portrayed. The audience applauded them to continue doing the part (57). Erven describes the collective process described by Ngugi wa Thiong’o in the quotation above as an “impromptu forum theatre” (174). In the same tone, writing about the Kamiriithu collective experience, Kenyan scholars, Chesaina Ciarunji and Evan Mwangi note that:

Ngugi wa Thiongo and Ngugi wa Miiri created the plot, the peasants provided the songs and made changes to the work to suit their taste. The resulting product was a text that was revolutionary and popular, incorporating local theatre forms and treating thematic issues with which the community could identify. (223)

Collective participation was also exhibited in the programme when the peasants identified the need for performance space. The peasants collaborated and erected a semi-circular platform, braced by a semi-circular wall of bamboo. The audience area consisted of steps of wood that served as seats for an audience of 2000 people (Byam 90; Mlama 93). Behind this auditorium was a stand of eucalyptus trees that served as additional seating or performance space. Ngugi wa Thiongo notes that “by singing from the trees the performers were able to perform to the entire village as distinct theatre space, thus succeeding in creating a theatre for the entire community” (42).

To sum it up all, the Kamiriithu theatre project is an effective case to demonstrate how the concept of acceleration can be achieved in a TfD or applied theatre process. Clearly, the process is built on the passions and the animated collective action of the people. The community in this project kept on their feet, always working to achieve collective empowerment goals. A discussion of the Kamiriithu project has demonstrated that acceleration in TfD is achieved when the TfD process develops out of the passions and the natural impulses of the participating community, offering an endogenous people centred process.

Accelerating Walukuba Community Voices: The Walukuba TfD process

This section, drawing from my engagement with TfD practice, continues to illustrate the concept of acceleration in TfD practice. I present the Walukuba TfD project of 2017 to 2017 (McQuaid and Plastow 961; Plastow and McQuaid 1; Mcquaid et al. 393) as a well accelerated process. By describing the Walukuba TfD process as well accelerated, I infer that it was filled with passion, agency, collective action and empowerment and that it was a project where the community was set in motion, working on their feet and articulating problems of collective concern. The project was well animated and accelerated for a period of two years when the community worked closely with the animators. With the collective efforts of both the participants and the facilitators anchoring the process, the project became sustainable beyond the two years process. The theatre work in the community has been sustained to date to the extent that the members of the community became self-reliant and continued with self-mobilization, theatre making and community empowerment even after university-based facilitators withdrew from the community.

In 2015, I worked as part of a team of four TfD practitioners led by Jane Plastow from the University of Leeds, implementing an intergenerational TfD process in Walukuba, a peri-urban community in Jinja, Eastern Uganda. The other members of our team comprised of Katie McQuaid, from the University of Leeds, Jane Plastow’s research partner and co-facilitator and Baron Oron, one of the early TfD practitioners in Uganda. I joined the team having requested for permission from Plastow to allow me to attend the process as an upcoming TfD scholar and practitioner.

The team brought to the project an interplay of expertise. Plastow, a professor of African theatre at Leeds University, had had a long experience in applied theatre research and practice in East Africa, Botswana and the Horn of Africa. She had also worked on intergenerational TfD projects involving Ugandan women with Ugandan practitioners at Makerere university, mainly her former postgraduate mentees at University of Leeds such as Patrick Mangeni, Susan Kiguli and Lillian Mbabazi. McQuaid, an anthropologist by profession brought to it an assemblage of expertise weaving together the fields of gender, environment, intergenerational practice and field exploratory research techniques.

Oron, a practitioner who has been involved in field of TfD in Uganda since its nascent stages, in the 1980s had worked closely with Ugandan TfD guru, Rose Mbowa and thus brought to the project many years of the experience. He had in the 1990s, jointly facilitated with Zadok Adolu Otojoka and Patrick Mangeni on a number of key applied theatre projects in Uganda such as Ekwaikisii Ai project and the veteran’s theatre project. He had also jointly facilitated with Rose Mbowa the stepping stones TfD workshops which adopted Alice Welbourn’s Stepping Stones concept in Entebbe and Masaka (Mbowa 43-7; Mbowa 261; Bamuturaki 229). In addition to this broad experience, Oron used his multilingual proficiency in local languages such as Lusoga, Luganda and Kiswahili to support the team from the UK in working with the Walukuba community. As for me, having received permission from Plastow to join the team, I came to the project as an inquisitive early career practitioner.

The Walukuba TfD project was part of a transnational project involving countries such as China, United Kingdom and Uganda with a broader aim of engaging communities in exploring intergenerational issues and their intersection with gender, politics and the environment in major cities. To ensure that the project was filled with power and agency, the project deployed collective tools of community mobilization and group building. The project, spanning for a period of over several years, 2015 to 2017, invested ample time in its various stages, namely, pre-project mobilization, group building, problem identification and analysis. It deployed several strategies and techniques such as participatory community research, devising theatre and performance and laying strategies for community action and sustainability. Various segments of the community such as the politicians, opinion leaders, the youth and elderly people were mobilized to participate in the project. Before beginning to implement the project, McQuaid travelled from the UK ahead of Plastow and lived in the community for a period of more than two months to learn the community and build rapport with the people.

When it came to community building and research, the team deployed a combination of participatory research techniques such as image theatre, letter writing, theatre games, storytelling, poetic recitation and theatre making to engage various groups of the community in exploring their problems.

Young girls performing a poem articulating their vulnerabilities in Walukuba, 2016. Photo: Keneth Bamuturaki

Different segments of the community such as the young women, the young men and the elders were initially engaged independently and later on engaged in an intergenerational process where the youths would interface with the elders telling and performing their stories. This process was sustained for a period of five months, allowing a process of community analysis and awareness to organically emerge from the community. The community had for a period of than five months been kept working on their feet, analyzing their community problems in a critical encounter with each other.

The community Walukuba is rehearsing for performance, 2016. Photo: Keneth Bamuturaki

It was a process of critical reflection with research, analysis, theatre making and performance informing a cyclic process of continued reflection. Each segment of the community, namely, the youth and the elders identified a list of their problems but also became aware that these problems were cross cutting, affecting both the young and the old. The wider community became aware of wider and complex issues affecting their lives. For example, it became apparently clear that irresponsible use of the environment would lead to climate change which would impact farm yields and consequently lead to poverty. It was understood that lack of effective labor unionization led to low wages and lack of minimum wage legislation which would lead to labor exploitation, poverty, school fees challenges and consequently lead to children dropping out of school. Intergenerational sex would lead to early pregnancy which would lead to child poverty with attendant effects such as malnutrition, diseases, lack of education and effectively lack of skills for gainful employment. Consequently, the process fostered a deepened process of problem posing education and thematic investigation.

Each segment of the community participated in an engaged process of devising and performing theatre. Facilitated by the animators, they got engaged in a long-drawn-out process of constructing and demolishing scenarios until they would collectively come up with a piece of theatre agreeable to all. These pieces would be performed to another group of the community to foster a sustained process of analysis and counter analysis.

A group of men in Walukuba engaged in collective analysis in 2016. Photo: Keneth Bamuturaki

This process of collective engagement and empowerment was well articulated in the elders’ group. They started by devising a story in which they sought to explore a number of problems identified during the problem analysis phase. The conflict of the story focused on a family struggling with spacing childbirth. The wife in the family is presented struggling with the challenge of having to be pregnant and in labour all the time. She fears discussing the issue with her husband. She intimates with her fellow women who advise her to secretly visit a reproductive health clinic. In the meantime, the husband is struggling with poor health. He suspects that he could have contracted HIV/AIDS and he decides to privately seek HIV counselling and testing services. At the clinic, he bumps into her wife who has also privately visited the hospital to seek reproductive health services.

The group, filled with passion, collectively agreed that this story was good and launched into a process of collective play making. At this point the group was divided into two, that is, the group of women and the group of men. Such a division was by no means meant to arbitrarily separate the women from men. Rather, it was meant to give each group a safe and free atmosphere in which they would create the drama of their lives. The two dramas were later to be fused together to create a complete drama.

Plastow and I remained to work with the women’s group while McQuaid and Oron went to work with the men in another space away from the women’s group but at the same venue. Thus, the process of scenario development and collective play making had begun. In the women’s group, Plastow challenged the group to begin thinking about how the story would be made alive with a clear beginning middle and end and the kind of the characters they would consider. She invited them to think about characters who would discuss their experience the practice of family planning. The setting of the scenario would be a women’s Savings and Credit Cooperative Organization (SACCO) where the women would gather for a savings meeting.

The process of scenario development in the women’s group went as follows. After exhausting the agenda of the SACCO meeting, the chairperson of the meeting invites anyone with any other business to address the members. One of the women comes up with the issue of her struggle with childbirth and how she is exhausted childbearing. The chairperson invites the rest of the women to advise the woman. The women whom the group designated as woman 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 advise the woman articulating various viewpoints concerning their experience with family planning. Woman 2 gave her ordeal with artificial birth control methods, arguing that whenever she took family planning pills, she developed problems of stomach pain. Woman 3 complained that she had been using family planning to temporarily stop birth control but, in the process, she developed complications. Woman 4 interjected dismissing the claims and arguing she had had a good experience using family planning measures and advised women 2 &3 to seek proper medical advice from a professional health worker.

After all these arguments, woman 5, who desired to use family planning to control her rate of childbirth interpolated:

Fellow women, I have a huge challenge with birth control—I have given birth to many children which I and my husband are not able to take good care of. It is costly to buy clothing for the children to feed them and take them to school. I would like to begin family planning measures, but I am afraid of speaking to my husband about it.

Immediately woman 6 joined in to advise the woman to go and secretly see a health worker. The advice is supported by some women in the group and rejected by others, leading to a well-built dramatic conflict. At the end of it, the woman was secretly escorted by her friend to the clinic where she met the nurse.

Such a creative process was collectively engaging with everyone seizing the opportunity to participate. The process was well accelerated with all involved working on their feet to make theatre. The women’s voices were clearly amplified, and they took control of the process, ensuring that everyone had the opportunity to suggest ways to improve the play. Their proposals were evaluated, adapted, and rehearsed on stage. One participant suggested revising a line from ‘I have many children’ to ‘I become pregnant at short intervals after breastfeeding; I am pregnant most of the time and frequently in labour.’ Another, demonstrating enthusiasm during rehearsals, remarked that a particular role was not being performed effectively and should be reassigned

There came a moment during the theatre-making and rehearsal process when the women were developing the conflict. Women in the crowd scene were devising an act of support or protest against woman 4 having to go and secretly seek reproductive health services. One of the women proposed that instead of having all of us rise at one go to support or protest the idea of secret family planning for the woman, let us build the action progressively. Let one woman rise and say no and another rise and say yes. Then the rest of us will rise and join either to support or to reject the move.

This suggestion was accepted and rehearsed on stage leading to a well-drawn-out conflict.

The Walukuba women’s scenario in 2017. Photo: Keneth Bamuturaki

As the women were making their scene, the men, facilitated by McQuaid and Oron, were also developing a bar scene about HIV testing and disclosure. The protagonist of this scene was the husband of the woman who was secretly seeking reproductive health services (hereafter Husband). The scene developed as follows: Husband and his group of friends are drinking in a bar. The husband in the scene complains that he has for a long time been feeling sickly and hints on the likelihood that he contracted the HIV virous. He is advised by his close friend to go for HIV testing and counselling. The other men in the bar strongly discourage him from seeking HIV counselling and testing services so as to save himself from unnecessary worry.

Convinced by his friend about the merits of seeking HIV counselling and testing, Husband makes up his mind to secretly go for HIV counselling and testing. He is accompanied by his friend to the clinic, where he bumps into his wife who also has gone to the clinic to secretly seek family planning services. Husband and wife are surprised to find themselves at the hospital. This dramatic and unexpected meeting prompts the question from both the wife and husband, “what are you doing here?” Husband boldly tells the wife the truth, “for some time now, I have not been feeling well. I have been worried I could be HIV positive. This prompted me to seek HIV testing and counselling.” The wife, now emboldened by her husband’s move replies “Thank you for that bold step. I have also come to receive reproductive services.” At the end of the scene, the couple decided to jointly seek HIV counselling and testing services. The two scenes from the men’s and women’s scenario development process were brought together. The ensuing plot was a short well-made play intertwining several problems such as poverty, lack of school fees, HIV/AIDS infection, family love and women rights as had been identified at the community research and analysis phase.

Such a protracted process of using theatre to analyse deeply felt needs of the Walukuba community had accelerated the community and kept them moving and working on their feet. The process drew the community into a collaborative and transformative examination of their challenges. They approached problems through the lens of other issues and, in doing so, became aware of the underlying contradictions affecting their development. Liberating dialogue, characteristic of Freirean problem-posing education, permeated the playmaking process, enabling the elders to bring out multiple perspectives on the issues at hand. They were able to reflect on and better understand their situation, while also learning to respect opposing views.

These moments of empowerment did not end at the play-making phase. Since the whole process involved intergenerationality and intergroup analysis, in the workshop that followed, the elders performed their play to an audience comprised of the other peers—the young men and the young women. When it came to performance the following day, there were some changes on the cast, which by no means distorted the quality of the community engagement process. I observed that some actors who had been part of the play making and rehearsal process had not turned up. The elders had to make for these absences by requesting other participants to fill the roles. Even when the participants had not been understudies in the play making and rehearsal process, they readily accepted the challenge, and the performance went on as planned.

Effectively, the collective creative process had transformed the participants into real actors, or to use Boal’s terms, protagonists of their own empowerment. In TfD terms, the process had empowered the colonised or dominated to speak back to the centres of power (Prentki 199). In my view, this kind of spontaneous participation and collective playmaking, enabled by the process, underscored the potential of a well accelerated TfD process in giving voice to the voiceless and effectively creating spaces for empowerment to take its due course.

Final Synthesis

In the final analysis, the concept of acceleration may be applied not only to the conventional Aristotelian theatre but also to the applied theatre practices. When applied to applied theatre, the concept essentially means invigorating the community’s passion so that it becomes immersed in the process of actively using the medium of theatre and performance to uncover its problems and participate in its own empowerment and change. This, however normally depends on the ingenuity of the facilitation team which has to appeal to the organic impulses of the community. When this happens, the community is transformed into one of power and enthusiasm. They remain active and engaged, working on a performance in which they articulate issues of collective concern. When the process is imbued with urgency, collective creation, action, passion and effective participation, it normally exhibits a sense of energy and acceleration. In most cases, this produces the desired transformation and empowerment of the community. Conversely, when the process is slowed, lacking in enthusiasm, passion and energy, it becomes difficult to effectively engage the community, let alone move them to the direction of strategizing for collective action.

Endnotes

^[1] Pedagogy of the Oppressed [in the original in Brazilian Portuguese: Pedagogia do oprimido, 1968] was Paulo Freire’s ground-breaking publication in education practice. The work influences practice in both formal and informal contexts. It has also widely shaped approaches to community engagement, empowerment, and transformation.

^[2] The Theatre of the Oppressed, Teatro do Oprimido (TO) is a theatrical practice developed in the 1960s/70s. It empowers marginalized communities (the “oppressed”) to become active “spect-actors” who analyze and transform their own lived experiences of oppression into scenarios for social change through interactive techniques

^[3] John Dewey’s Educational thought influenced 20^th century theorization in education. Many of the educational practitioners such as Dorothy Heathcote, Brian Way and Paulo Freire were greatly influenced by his thinking on child centeredness in the teaching and learning process.

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*Keneth Bamuturaki achieved his PhD in Drama in 2017 from the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. His research focuses on Theatre for Development and Theatre in Education. He has published several articles in various refereed journals such as Research in Drama Education, Consciousness, Literature & the Arts, Studies in Theatre and Performance and International Journal of Communication. He currently teaches drama at Kyambogo University in Uganda, where he is also the Head of the Music and Performing Arts Department. In 2022, he convened the annual international African Theatre Association conference at Kyambogo University and subsequently with Charles Nwadigwe co-edited a book titled Voyages in Postcolonial African Theatre Practice. He is an alumnus of the Fulbright having been a Fulbright African Visiting Scholar at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor from September 2025 to February 2026.