Health Drama

Sexually transmitted diseases, physical disabilities, alcoholism, and family planning are difficult to talk about.  Wan Smolbag Theater presentations and participatory activities have opened a community dialogue on these and other health and social issues.

Drama has long been a critical element in medial intervention, especially in group relationships. Learning to understand social relationships achieves greater depth and meaning when Smolbag Theater actors take on the role of facilitators and invite people to join in the dramas. 

  Wan Smolbag Theatre and Health Force Theatre have a set of audience participatory sketches on AIDS and STDs. This is a humorous audience interactive piece with a mock-up of a vagina and penis on stage and in which actors play STDs, semen and AIDS and their super-enemy the CONDOM. They also show through drama the effects of untreated STDs to the bodies of both men and women.

In 1996, Health Force developed a piece on urban drift and population which was funded by Save the Children Fund, Australia. They toured many islands in Vanuatu. Health Force youth have been very successful and are now very proficient actors and enthusiastic workshop facilitators. "We have learnt that we are not just a waste of space and we have some use in society," says Andrew Alfred, a member of the group. Beru Jimmy adds, "Before I joined Health Force I felt my life was out of control. I've got a lot of energy and I like doing things and I had no way to channel all that. Now I feel I know where I'm going a bit more." Blacksands, where nearly all the group come from, is a poor urban settlement with corrugated iron houses, no water, no electricity and lacks schooling and work opportunities for young people.

In 1992, the Wan Smolbag Theatre produced a video on AIDS called Like Any Other Lovers. Funded by the South Pacific Commission AIDS-STDs project, the video is about a young man, Chris, whose girl friend, Linda, refuses to sleep with him until he gets tested for AIDS. Linda is a nurse and she's seen people die of AIDS. Chris takes the test and finds out anyone can be HIV positive. The film looks at people's reactions to Chris's illness and the terrible strain it puts on his relationship with Linda. A story of love against terrible odds.

One of the most popular films was Kasis Road, funded by the British Government (DFID), AusAID, Canada Fund, New Zealand Official Development Assistance, and the Government of Japan Grassroots Assistance Project. It is a video on population and family planning. Kasis Road is outside of town. The houses are made of corrugated iron. There is no electricity, no water, no sewage system for the houses. Most people don't work and many children don't go to school. Tony and his family live on Kasis Road. He's not worried about the future, he's too busy getting drunk and fooling around. But when he gets Rachael pregnant, things change. His father wants Rachael to come and live with them. Tony doesn't want to know; he's not interested in Rachael or the baby and he's met the first woman he ever really cared about.

Stopping an Epidemic

In 1998 the Health Department was faced with a Dengue Fever epidemic. Transmitted by a "domestic" mosquito that lives in rubbish, the virulent - even deadly - disease escalated at a frightening speed. 

The Health Department contacted the Wansmol Bag Theatre and asked them to produce a quick action campaign to reach as many people as possible and encourage them to clean up breeding sites for the mosquitoes. The troupe visited as many homes as possible to warn of the dangers of Dengue Fever and pointing out places which were potential breeding sites for mosquitoes. The message was delivered through chorus and song and people responded very positively, collecting rubbish as the group left and in come cases clearing their yards when they heard Smolbag was coming.  The team produced a wonderful video called "It Couldn't Happen Here,"  that uses mosquito puppets to show where mosquitoes breed and how the Dengue virus spreads. The fast-paced video shows the mosquitoes lurking about watching the live actors talking to people, trying to stop the dengue epidemic.  It was broadcast many times on National TV. The campaign worked and the epidemic was averted.

The British Government (DFID) and the South Pacific Commission Vector Borne Disease Programme (AusAID Funded) funded the Dengue video production and a companion video and user's guide on Malaria. The Malaria video is called Wan Presen Blong Niufala Bebe . In this drama, using live actors and puppets, Daniel is waiting for his mother to give birth but the memory of his young brother's recent death still haunts him. He desperately wants the new baby to be safe. When he finds a dirty old doll, he takes it home and tells it to protect the new baby. And it does - in a way Daniel could never have imagined.