It is said that Emperor Haile Selassie I enjoyed the theatre. Laureate Tsegaye Gebremedhin credits the Emperor with inspiring the start of his playwriting career. As a young boy, Tsegaye translated a few passages from a play about Roman emperors and organized an impromptu “three boys” show within a few nights, with the help of his school in Ambo, while the Emperor was on retreat there. The show earned the young Tsegaye a memorable comment from the Emperor—and sparked a lifelong interest in his career.

In the past, in Ethiopia—as in many other countries—plays were often published in book form either before or after being staged. A quick look into the subject reveals that many such plays were indeed published. Notable examples include Yeshawerk Hailu’s Netsanet Kibre (1953), Tezazu Hailu’s Himamate Ethiopia (1954), Ashebir Gebre Hiwot’s Fikir Ayarejim (1970), Berhanu Denke’s Nigest Azeb Tarikawi Te’atir (1959), Tsegaye Gebre Medhin’s Yeshoh Aklil (1960), and Hahu Be Sedest Wer (ABC in Six Months, 1974), as well as Mengistu Lemma’s Telfo Bekisse (Marriage by Abduction, 1962) and Yelecha Gebecha (Marriage of Unequals, 1963).  

The formal start of theatre in Ethiopia dates back to 1921, under the leadership and efforts of Yoftahe Nigusse. However, the first play produced in the country was The Jest of Animal Comedians, written by Teklehawariyat Teklemariam Wayph and staged in 1904/5 during the brief reign of Empress Zewditu. Teklehawariyat, one of the earliest returnees from studies abroad, had endeavoured this nation’s first attempt at playwriting and production with a group of young students, all boys, of course, whom he was hoping to train and introduce into the arts. Teklehawariyat had also printed a few hundred copies of the play for distribution to schools.

Empress Zewditu, however—despite never attending the show—was convinced by her advisors that the play was a satire aimed at her leadership. Angered, she promptly banned further reruns and had the printed copies confiscated. It was to be many years before Ethiopian writers “dared” to explore the form again, and even the performance of translated short plays was limited within the confines of school settings.

Emperor Haile Selassie’s more amenable approach to the art form and desire to see a modern and Ethiopian artistic scene thrive in the country did not shield theatre from censorship. His office had to review and approve each manuscript before it was published or produced. Laureate Tsegaye Gebremedhin tells of frustration caused by having to wait—sometimes for several months—for approval, which still did not guarantee reruns, even if, on occasions, the Emperor himself attended performances.

But censorship did not end with the fall of the monarchy. Despite a brief respite in the early days of the Derg regime, it came back in force, with dedicated government agencies and staff placed in the management of all the major venues and publishing houses. Since 1991, a similar pattern has persisted: intermittent periods of openness followed by restrictions. While pre-publication censorship has largely been abandoned- too expensive to maintain—productions and publications have been known to be cancelled or stopped.

Despite a rich, diverse, and ancient literary and musical traditions, both religious and secular, many of which served as vehicles for political critique, public grievances, and patriotism, the history of the modern novel, in book form, is relatively recent. The first such novel, Tobia, appeared just over a century ago. In Ethiopia, as in other monarchies at the time, this art form and other forms of artistic expression had to obtain royal approval or were commissioned and patroned by people close to power. It is the reason why books from those days were often dedicated to the Emperor or other members of the royal family.

Until the early 1990s, Addis Ababa was the only city in Ethiopia with theatre and cinema halls. Hawassa only got a cinema in the 2000s, and, to my knowledge, Gambella and Benishangul-Gumuz still do not have one. I’m not sure if this is still done, but until around 2005/2006, the entire cast and production teams of successful plays would tour a few cities once the Addis Ababa reruns were completed. Before this practice began, publication of plays was therefore a way of establishing enthusiasts outside the capital, to stage a version of it with available local resources which would often take place in school halls, military camps, camps for students sent on literacy or similar mandatory civil service, or, as was often the case, in open-air settings for the local community.

Thanks to the late poet Nebiy Mekonnen—who translated Gone with the Wind on aluminum cigarette pack wrappings while he was imprisoned in Kerchele during the Derg regime—we also know about Kerancha Kurumbi, a sort of inmate entertainment group. This group staged plays written by prisoners or adapted from the memory of other works.

Beyond their outreach role, published plays allow us to track and understand the evolution of the socio-political thinking in the country. Some of the translator’s notes and prologues by the writers or publishers alone offer interesting insights, making an amusing contrast along the way.

A certain Hailu Neguse, who wrote a propaganda play in 1976/77 welcoming the “changes” brought about by the then still-new Derg regime, reads: “I wish first and foremost to give thanks to the Almighty, by whose grace the deeply persecuted and disintegrated Ethiopians were able to come together around the same vision to drive away those brothers in wolves’ clothing back to the caves they came from, and thus defeat the atmosphere of doubt, fear, mistrust, and oppression they lived in.”

The play—essentially a monologue, interrupted only by brief questions or remarks from the nine other listed characters—depicts a former member of the nobility of the monarchy listing the various favors he granted to friends and family, as well as the riches he amassed through corruption.

Just two decades earlier, a play by Balambaras Ashebir Gebrehiwot—a member of the nobility and dedicated to one of the Emperor’s sons—used a love story subplot to praise the monarchy for its efforts to modernize the country.

Despite the existence of politically motivated—and often commissioned—works which are only semblances of plays, there were also serious attempts to introduce a modern and meaningful theatrical tradition in the country. Mengistu Lemma, who cited Russian authors such as Chekhov as a major influence, believed strongly in play as an effective medium for social criticism and education. He was particularly keen to ensure that his plays were published and preserved. According to his lifelong friend and first audience, the late Professor Richard Pankhurst, many of Mengistu’s plays, poetry also poetry, and other writings, remained unpublished as he waited for more convenient political contexts.

The more recent publication of a play, to my knowledge, is a collection of several of Laureate Tsegaye Gebremedhin’s famous plays, published around 2017/18 by his family. Another such example is Azeb Workou’s Amharic translation of Trap for a Lonely Man by Robert Thomas, which she also directed and produced. If memory serves, the production ran at the National Theatre for nearly a year in 2010/11. What might be a contemporary of this translation is the original play Taitu by Getnet Eneyew.

Even supposing I have missed other examples, it is still safe to argue that the publication of plays is a dying tradition, if not already extinct. It might also be safe to speculate that a dramatic decline in readership, combined with catastrophically high printing costs,—to use the theatrical pun—played a big part in this. Although being a traditionalist who prefers the printed book, it’s worth noting that types of digital mediums that would make the cost challenge moot and not worth mentioning.

If one is to rely on our observation of the majority of Ethiopian films and TV series—which are often tired love stories where one of the protagonists is poor and the other from a wealthy family—one wonders if the challenge whether the real issue lies in the gradual disappearance of scriptwriting as a practiced craft.

The long queues once seen outside the city’s few theatre halls on weekends are now a thing of the past.

In October/November, my colleagues and I at my former organization reached out to several theatre and film schools in and outside Addis Ababa, only to be saddened to find out none of them wrote original scripts as part of their coursework or projects. Instead, the training relied almost entirely on theory and pre-existing works—either previously produced or printed.

Perhaps this is an even more urgent reason to argue for the revival of publishing plays…………