The first advantage of PPT is that it offered the villagers of Malealea a safe space in which to genuinely discuss their problems without feeling judged. As the villagers got together and shared their personal stories with the other participants, there was a sense of relief even if only for a moment. Sharing of ideas and experiences and responding to others gives a certain degree of power. Discussions become a vehicle for members of the audience to relieve themselves emotionally, especially when taking an active part in them. Though sometimes this may only be limited to emotional relief, it may at times trigger something in people that facilitates long-term change. Erven (2001:244) states that in community theatre projects all those who are involved, even if only for a day, emerge with an improved self-esteem and this (though at a slower pace) may lead to the desired behavioural change.
The second advantage is that PPT promotes community action. Sometimes people take things for granted and they ultimately begin normalising certain habits and justifying them by reasoning that they have always been there. For example, it is accepted that parents cannot talk about sex with their children because their parents did not talk to them about it. A similar logic is evident in the reasoning that if your husband beats you there is nothing that you can do because it is meant to be like that. In PPT, in order for the REFLECT circle members not to take things for granted, the ‘normal’ was stripped of its
‘familiarity’ and its hegemony challenged through Boal’s Forum Theatre (1979:139); and as people began to discuss and debate issues, possible solutions to some of their problems were found. Thus PPT succeeded in creating some form of awareness.
PPT can also be used to break the culture of silence around taboo words or problems that exist but which people pretend that they do not see. In the case of Malealea, people discussed issues of alcohol and prostitution that have been festering in the community for a long time but which people did not have the courage to talk about.
The findings of this study illustrate that PPT can be used to address important issues, but these issues should be those that the community sees as important. For example, in Malealea one of the problems mentioned was the fact the public transport is very poor.
For PPT to address important and relevant issues, the target community needs to point to the issues that they want dealt with. In this way PPT will be a process of social transformation where the community, in wanting to change the status quo, will take ownership of the transformation process.
Reflecting on the project with hindsight, something we could have done was to ask the community their problems and then take those as our point of departure. For example, for the young boys HIV/AIDS does exist but that is not as important as making money.
That could have been our starting point. The same is true of the issue of chicken theft, which the old man kept talking about. Therefore, in order not to waste time and move back and forth, it is important that people should state their problems and that should become the starting point. Despite this setback, however, the most important thing is that
the project provided a platform for engaging people in dialogue.
PPT can also address important issues if the target community understands the language that is utilised. For example, the play ‘Dance Me to the End of Love’ was used only as a starting point so that people could reflect on it and see what it is that they can change.
Therefore, if people need to watch a play and relate it to their social reality, it needs to be done in a language that they understand. The fact that the play was performed in two languages, Sesotho and English, posed a problem because the people in Malealea do not understand English.
Language was a huge impediment in the sense that when the play was performed, some of the important issues were not communicated to the villagers as they were in English.
For example, Scene 4, ‘It’s in my Culture, it’s not in my culture’ was performed in English. It involved a young man protesting that it is not in his culture to use a condom and another claiming that it is in his culture to always drink too much. This key scene was lost on the majority of the audience.
It is therefore imperative that in PPT projects that utilise more than one language, the logistics of language be sorted out at the very beginning, as this could have a bearing on the project. Sometimes important issues will not be communicated, and thus PPT will cause despondency, rather than being a tool to address important issues.
Before social transformation can take place the community first needs to acknowledge that there is a problem and they need to work on the cause of the problem. In this endeavour, there has to be participation from the community and direction from the catalysts since intervention serves a directorial function (Mda, 1993:168). This is because without facilitation or direction from the catalysts, there tends to be finger- pointing (as in the example of the old woman who complained that certain people benefit from the lodge). If there were no intervention, the villagers would easily be divided into two groups (those who support the old woman’s views and those who do not support her views) and the focus would have been lost. On the other hand, there has to be
participation from the community as they need to name, reflect and act on their problems (Mda,1993:160). Therefore, for social transformation to occur there have to be two variables, participation and intervention, which must balance in the goal of conscientisation (Mda, 1993:164).
In the case of Lesotho, PPT should form a foundation on which sensitive issues such as sex, rape and domestic violence can be discussed, not just at a community level but by starting with an individual and then proceeding to the family. Opening doors for communication is the first step needed for Lesotho to start to heal as a nation, especially in this difficult era of HIV/AIDS where people hide behind their cultural practices and poverty.
In conclusion, PPT allows its participants to understand and literally act upon their world (Freire,1972:96). It must, however, be understood that it cannot immediately change people’s cultural practices which they have practised for a long time and come to believe to be ‘natural’. Some cultural practices are factors that lead to the oppression. Change is a process and people fear it as it is packed with uncertainty; people fear what they don’t know. In Malealea, however, theatre offered a room within the confines of culture, in which women and girls particularly could practise creating the changes that they would like to see in their world.
The findings of the study also indicate that Freire’s pedagogy is relevant in the development of Lesotho and can be used in dealing with the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Applying the problem-posing methodology in dealing with HIV/AIDS can aid in breaking the silence that surrounds the issues pertaining to the pandemic. Due to the participatory nature of the problem-posing methodology, it can help in increasing knowledge about the pandemic and can also assist communities in trying to locate the root cause of their problems through dialoguing with each other. An effective way of dealing with the pandemic is not just to communicate about it as an autonomous entity, but to break it down into pieces. For example, people should not look for ways of stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS but rather look into why the rates keep increasing.