Cover Story
Pacific People Of The Year
Wan Smol Bag - Why they've been a success in the region
"Spare some money for an old lady? Anyone? Please." Grace, her back slightly hunched, wearing a baggy, sleeved dress with a pareu flung offhandedly around her shoulders shuffles along a street from one indifferent person to another hand outstretched pleading for spare change.
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The scene is a grim image of reality. Grace and characters like her pop out from a series of dramatisations by Wan Smol Bag (WSB), a case of art imitating life but with clear messages couched within the play. One of Wan Smol Bag's productions called 2050, featuring the character Grace, uncovers crumbling social conditions, the now-and-then of a fictitious society lacking in appropriate economic and social mechanisms.
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Now 50-strong, the group of committed full-time actors, most of whom joined the theatre at different stages and who seemingly work out of one small bag, have come through to what is now Wan Smol Bag's 13th year of community service highlighting issues pertaining to broad topics such as good governance, health and the environment.
| December is the month in which Islands Business, since 1987, takes upon itself to dub the accolade of recognition on the person, and in some years the people, two or three of them, who have made some significant impact, in one way or another, on the lives of Pacific Islanders. This year, it is our particular pleasure to offer our accolade to about 50 people - the company of souls who are also the heart of the extraordinary Wan Smol Bag theatre of Vanuatu. The opportunity to praise an institution wholeheartedly, without reservation, occurs rarely. If there's any institution in the Pacific Islands that can truly be said to be working at the grassroots level, then it is Wan Smol Bag. The messages it carries to Pacific Islanders with apparently simple but actually cleverly constructed plays executed with considerable verve and not a little sophistication, all with a backdrop of nearly nothing, are immediately understood by everyone who watches them. Barriers of culture, language, age, youth and almost complete absence of the gadgets and gimmicks of the theatre are overcome with an ease that has to be seen to be believed. The messages are about the basics of modern life in the Pacific Islands, and about how to manage and improve upon them. They are education delivered in the most effective possible way; as entertainment. The success and impact of Wan Smol Bag is easy to gauge. It is the instant response, and the understanding flaring in the eyes of the grassroots audiences Wan Smol Bag presents its messages to. All through the year, every year, since the year 13 years ago of its inception, Wan Smol Bag does Pacific Islanders power of good, and completely unselfishly so. How many other Pacific institutions can claim to do that? |
Wan Smol Bag Theatre developers Peter Walker and wife Jo Dorras have seen the group grow from a meagre 15, who responded to an initial advertisement pasted up around Port Vila, to a plump 50 and growing.
What is it then that has kept Wan Smol Bag going since it took root in 1989?
Dorras points to the identity factor as one reason for the adhesiveness. "I believe the major thing is that the people have enjoyed the work and the people in it feel it's their own and they make the decisions," Dorras said.
"It gives the young people a kind of status, suddenly they're there in front of the elderly saying things that may not be their exact words, but they generally agree with the messages the plays have.
"Also, the fact that many organisations feel that Wan Smol Bag reaches the grassroots level. For example, the forestry department here (Vanuatu) used us because when they turned up in a village they found that only a few men would come to listen to them, but when they brought in Wan Smol Bag the whole village turned up."
Major funding for Wan Smol Bag comes from the American-based Packard Foundation; European Union through its good governance projects, World Wide Fund (WWF) in Fiji; United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA); the British Department for International Development (DFID); Oxfam New Zealand and the New Zealand Government.
Although the issues have remained somewhat the same, what has evolved, apart from group members, is the way Wan Smol Bag addresses those issues.
Thirteen years ago, explains Dorras, the idea was solely to create a production, the act being the end-all-and-be-all of a Wan Smol Bag creation.
What was missing? After-play discussions, now considered a communicative imperative of Wan Smol Bag's performances assuming a focal part of the act rousing artists and audience to interact at a more personal level.
"The after-play discussions are what people talk about. It's not that the people loved the play, but what was said after that during discussions that mattered."
Wan Smol Bag has also progressed to coordinating workshops in which any number of its members venture out into the community armed with a recording of previous work or run workshops with participants driving the play and Wan Smol Bag actors moderating and animating it.
Walker, a trained actor, was as Dorras says "very keen" on starting a community theatre group in Vanuatu. British but then stationed in Zimbabwe, Dorras and Walker worked with students there on theatre work touring Zimbabwe, Botswana and the United Kingdom.
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Ian Gaskell, Professor of Theatre Arts at the University of the South Pacific's Literature and Language department, has undertaken research to examine the nature of Wan Smol Bag's effectiveness in the area of social development. In collaboration with psychologist, Dr Robin Taylor, of the university's Education and Psychology department, they intend to publish several papers next year on Wan Smol Bag's work and their impact on audiences.
"The company produces very entertaining theatre, so when they go into a village they have no trouble drawing a crowd," Gaskell said.
"That was one of the things that was immediately apparent to us. The company is highly professional in its working methods and primarily intent on generating a top quality experience."
Of their particular appeal with the community, Gaskell explains that Wan Smol Bag's productions are very much a collaboration.
"Whether in terms of creating a script or taking that script and readying it for performance, it is essentially a group enterprise.
"Peter (Walker) as director is a strong administrator and has been particularly successful in generating project monies, and Jo (Dorras) has an uncanny ability to take the idea they're working on and turn that into a strong performance text." But, Gaskell stressed, that "everyone in the company contributes to the final product."
Having been together for many years and now constituting what Gaskell calls an ensemble, the group solidarity, he said, is projected on to the stage. And one defining element academics Taylor and Gaskell discovered through their initial study is "a sense of mission," that Wan Smol Bag believes it is doing something important and "if you have that behind your endeavour it will certainly improve the quality of your work."
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Their initial research on the group was conducted in 2000 and followed up by two additional studies in which Gaskell and Taylor looked at the work itself and the nature of its impact in terms of community development. Why go into a community with a play as opposed to a lecture? "Because a play appears to communicate more effectively. That is why drama has been used for educational purposes for centuries," Gaskell said.
But what is it about this art form that encourages attitude change? "It works primarily because it seems to strike an emotional response with the audience. The particular message being disseminated is subsumed in the art."
Gaskell and Taylor worked with Wan Smol Bag again early this year to test audience response to a particular play on reef preservation.
"We were interested in exploring the nature of artistic communication and whether or not the audience grasps the intended message. We understand that the play is an expression of an underlying message. It is, however, the expression that we're interested in and the nature of its persuasive impact," Gaskell said.
"What Wan Smol Bag is doing is a form of didactic theatre. It is educational theatre in which the function of the particular piece of work has an underlying utilitarian aspect to it."
Gaskell and Taylor expect to present three papers based on their research on Wan Smol Bag at the Hawai'i International Conference on Arts and the Humanities in January.
HIV/AIDS and freedom of movement, which come under Wan Smol Bag's good governance work, are two issues that Dorras says are challenging.
According to Dorras, a writer and former teacher, most chiefs in Vanuatu prefer to hold their youths within the confines of their island perimetres.
"We have a play that looks at a young girl who runs away from the island because she's forced into an arranged marriage she doesn't want. She dresses up as a boy and seeks refuge at her sister's house. Eventually, the chief finds her and sends her back to the island," said Dorras, of the play Law or Custom, performed earlier this year.
Following a trip to Maewo, one of the islands in Vanuatu, Wan Smol Bag members found that women, generally, were for freedom of movement, a contrast to reactions by Maewo's male population, including the chiefs who, explains Dorras, were opposed to the idea. Group discussions revealed also that most of the men favoured custom-arranged marriages. Therein lies a challenge that consensus for the practical truth is not uniform.
There's a general feeling among the community that there is a need for the theatre group to revisit villages with the same issue(s). Generally in villages, says Dorras, there is no forum appropriate for such discussions and Wan Smol Bag plays "create that first discussion."
Dialogue pertaining to HIV/AIDS is less becoming a taboo subject. The group is aware that there has been a "phenomenal change" in how the Vanuatu people feel. More than occasionally in the past the group was prevented from entering a village to discuss issues on sexually transmitted diseases and body functions, a far cry from current attitudes.
Dorras said: "We were doing well with condoms before, but now people are asking for condoms when we go to their islands. We can get rid of 10 boxes of condoms, and there are 144 in each box. Also they're afraid to go to the clinics and health centres because they're aware of people looking.
"There are many organisations that have played a part in this openness. The health department has been instrumental in its awareness around HIV/AIDS, the Vanuatu Family Health Association, and others who work in the field. Collectively, we've had some effect."
Wan Smol Bag, with its associated Wan Smol Bag Kids group has established a reproductive and sexual health centre (Kam Pussum Hed Clinic), a product of a Blacksands project. It's been designed to target youths in peri-urban communities in Vanuatu.
The centre, which is the only clinic in Vanuatu attached to a non-medical NGO, is supported by the Vanuatu health department, Packard Foundation, UNFPA, IWDA (International Women in Development Agency), AusAID and UNICEF.
Lucy Seresere has been with Wan Smol Bag since 1983. Although somewhat of an introvert when she first started out, Seresere said that acting has helped her shed her inhibitions having to meditate discussions and run workshops apart from acting.
She relates one experience from a Wan Smol Bag group outing in which the group was banned from a nearby settlement because their intended drama on sexual reproduction encouraged young people "to sleep around."
Seresere's work has included radio productions, short sketches, video recordings and group plays. In an earlier interview, she talks about her work with Wan Smol Bag kids, whose ages range from 11 to 16, in a play on reproductive health.
"This was a good experience for me. I had to help the group deal with the arguments and fights instead of running away when they happened," Seresere said.
"I had to make the young boys in the group respect me. They are not used to listening to women, but they had to listen to me. Now I feel very proud when I introduce the group and see them taking such a difficult play to primary school audiences. The group has really developed."
Wan Smol Bag's environment work has been successful. Its turtle preservation campaign some years back resulted in the Turtle Monitors Network and subsequent bans on turtles around Efate. Villages west of volcanic Ambrym imposed taboos on the Namalau, an endangered bird species found on the island, following a Wan Smol Bag awareness campaign.
Wan Smol Bag is currently working on an English-language film production, jointly funded by Packard, European Union and WWF on population resources.
It's expected the completed product will be for regional use and sent to most schools in the Pacific and also television stations.
"I believe in plays. And the beauty about plays is that it can show both sides of the issue. The characters can represent all the different feelings about that issue and the audience has the opportunity to make up their minds.
"Getting the message across, changing behaviour is the hardest thing to do. The timing, that your messages are topical, that helps a lot," Dorras said.
"Even if you have a good play, it doesn't mean people will follow through with the message. You have to be constantly stimulated into what the message is trying to tell you."
