The Tragedy of Mr No Balance

Some Production Comments

46 Some Production Comments This play has some good situations, reflecting aspects of life in the growing towns of Africa. Petty bribery so often becomes an unsuccessful attempt by the small man to make some quick money out of an even smaller man. He only imitates the bribery practiced by the big man who frequently seems to get away with it. “It is our way of life …” -- but only for some. There are two points to make about this play: firstly, Mr. Musinga does not despise the characters he creates, he observes them closely and builds up complex relationships; secondly, he uses English to capture the tone and style of urban life exceedingly well, and he creates a language for the African theatre which is full of vivid expression. If you were producing this play, therefore, you would want to keep the dialogue as more than just a basis for your own improvisation. Your actors may well have the ability to achieve a very funny and sophisticated urban style - but the trouble with improvisation is that it can so easily become excessive: your actors, the very ones who are most competent and comic, can so easily fall into a parody of the characters. Many of your audience will feel uncomfortable if you mock the people Musinga has written about in this play. When you first tell an actor to make up his own dialogue as he goes along, he worries that he won't have enough to say. Once he has gained confidence, he usually finds he has too much to say, The art of improvisation lies in understanding your audience's responses very well. A line or a gesture may make an audience laugh and clap in appreciation of an accurate imitation of life; but if you keep on doing it their laughter soon stops. One of the achievements of Mr. Musinga's dialogue is the way in which he exercises restraint. A person whose mind still remains colonized will accept a parody of himself as being a 'normal" representation of himself, A sincere writer, or actor or producer, has a political responsibility to help his audience to see every member of the community as both an individual in his own right and a product of the forces of society operating upon him. Mr. Musinga succeeds because he appears to be writing from within society. He has not marked off his characters from the rest of us. No-Balance and the rest as us whoever we are or however grand we think we may be. This gift for creating common humanity In the midst of social change is a rare thing for actors and directors who are looking for a genuinely contemporary drama. However, I should not like to suggest that the text is completely inflexible. There are changes which can be made and indeed changes, which ought to be made -- in order to make the play suitable for both your theatre company and your potential audiences. I have itemized these as follows: 1. The C.I.D. detectives could make reference to actual cases solved by the police known to members of the community before whom you will be performing. The character of Edie, the A.S.P. (Security) man, should be modelled on actuality rather than the stripcomic image of the hero-cop of those magazines sold on every newsstand up and down 47 Africa. 2. If you have only a small group of actors, the following characters can be doubled up and played by the same actor: Vaa, Beagles and Judge Snaps; Jack, Edie, Law; Muke and Maggie; Wawah, Asongbu, Zaacs and Noah. No-Balance Mbarama (these cannot be doubled) Bih .. 3. Victor Musinga suggests one way in which the Voice of No-Balance's conscience might be handled, which is as follows: for Voice to seem to come from within NoBalance , let the speeches of voice be taped on a pocket-sized tape-recorder and a carefully calculated space be left between one speech and another. The tape-recorder can be carried in the breast-pocket of the actor playing the part of No- Balance. Now, whenever it's the turn of Voice to be heard, all that No-Balance has to do is switch on the tape by pressing the button (unnoticed by the audience) and then perform the appropriate actions. After which, the tape can be switched off, still unnoticed, until the next time when Voice has to come in. Another way would...