A DARING group of some of Zimbabwe’s leading actors and theatre directors has produced a play telling President Robert Mugabe it is time to step down, and will tour the country with it this month. The members say they are fed up with waiting for politicians to remove him.

Pregnant with Emotion is about a child who refuses to be born until there is a change of leadership in his country. Although Mugabe is not named, there is no doubt about the real identity of the 82-year-old dictator oppressing his people.

“It’s very critical of the regime and for the first time comes up with a solution,” said Daves Guzha, the director. “I think you reach a stage where you say to yourself, ‘Either I must stand up or forever be quiet’. I felt that as Zimbabweans we’ve just become accepting of the situation, the food and fuel shortages, power cuts and inflation.”

The play tells the story of Marwei, who is 13 months pregnant, and her child — symbolising Zimbabwe’s future — who refuses to leave the womb. The father Noah is a civil servant and an avid supporter of the ruling Zanu-PF party.

But Noah loses his job and the family is evicted from its home in Operation Murambatsvina (Drive Out the Filth), the government’s slum demolition campaign.

“What kind of father kicks the children out of the house in the middle of a cold night?” asks a poet as the couple huddle asleep on the street.

The play had a fortnight’s run in Harare last month, playing to enthusiastic audiences as well as a group of secret police who came five days running. “We knew who they were and directed all the anger towards them,” said Guzha.

The state media have referred to Guzha and the play as “the axis of evil”. He has been warned by the secret police not to go on.

The last such attempt at political satire, a 2004 production called Superpatriots and Morons, was banned by the regime. Pregnant with Emotion is by the same authors.

But Guzha’s team refuses to be deterred. In 10 days’ time the production will start touring the country.

The play comes at a time of tremendous disillusion in the country not just with Mugabe’s party, which has led almost half the population to the verge of starvation, but also the opposition. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has split into two factions, each claiming the other has been infiltrated by Zanu-PF. Although Morgan Tsvangirai, the founding MDC leader, recently announced a plan of mass mobilisation, few believe it will happen.

Within Zanu-PF, a bitter struggle is under way over the succession to Mugabe, who celebrates 26 years in power later this month. On both sides there is a sense that everyone is waiting for him to die.

“The focus of the play is not Mugabe, but succession,” said Guzha.

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