Fresh form to suit myriad ideas in Beyene Haile's Heart-to-Heart Talk

Abstract

This article probes the production of Beyene Haile's play Weg'i Libi (‘Heart-to-Heart Talk’) to contextualize some seemingly provincial contemporary concerns that in fact are relevant throughout Africa. Written in one of the Eritrean languages, Tigrinya, Weg'i Libi (2008) comes with a fresh form, which includes various elements from western classical to other various modern and African traditional performance forms examining a myriad of national and continental contemporary concerns such as migration, power consolidation, aesthetics, and oral tradition, which hinder it from immediate production. Though written by a prominent author, unlike government-sponsored productions with professional actors, this play was staged by amateur university students after it was rejected for professional production.

Keywords:

• Weg'i Libi
• Beyene Haile
• Heart-to-Heart Talk
• post-colonialism
• modernism
• Eritrean theatre
• traditional performance

Notes

1. All quotes from Menghis are my own translations.

2. Ghirmai Negash in his A History of Tigrinya Literature (1999), 10, identifies Alemseged Tesfai to have written Literature, Its Development, and Its Role in Revolution as an anonymous critic. However, it is my belief that Literature, Its Development, and Its Role in Revolution reflects EPLF's collective ideological views, and I find this aspect very relevant to my discussion here.

3. Masse is the highest form of Tigrinya oral poetry recited spontaneously by a man, massegna, in merrymaking occasions such as weddings, baptism, and other ceremonies to thank and praise the host. Mihishe is also a form of poetry recited by a lead singer in a group of young men who chant the word mihishe in between the recitation when wedding parties end and too few people are left to continue dancing. Hoye-hoye is performed by a group of young men and boys bearing torches during the season of the changing of years in the Geez Calendar.

4. On this date, the government in power detained 11 higher officials of the government ‘for peacefully expressing their opinions' and suppressed the free press. On 21 September 2001, it detained journalists of the free press. All the detainees remained incommunicado in detention and without trail for over 13 years. Such arbitrary detentions have continued and are documented by Amnesty International and human rights organizations.

5. The quote is from a review I wrote in the newspaper Eritrea Profile after the premier of the play, and the words in square brackets are amended for clarity.

6. With the exception of three actors in the play, others have fled the country, while two (Meles Nuguse and Ghirmay Abraham, both outstanding poets) have been in prison without charge for over five years.