The making of Stitsha: How father’s abuse inspired Cont to pen classic drama

By Bruce Ndlovu

Few television productions have captured the imagination of Zimbabweans like the Cont Mhlanga-penned Stitsha did when it made its debut on the small screen.

The show, powered by a fresh faced Beater Mangethe who lit up the screen with her spellbinding portrayal of Thuli, became a darling of many viewers during a time that can now be regarded as the golden age for Zimbabwean television.

The tension and struggle between Thuli and her tough as nails brother, Mopho, became a weekly highlight for many viewers who were delighted by the stirring performances by Beater and her on-screen brother.

For viewers, the show was a prime example of local television excellence, showcasing how local artistes could tell compelling Zimbabwean stories if given a platform.

However, for Cont Mhlanga, the show’s mastermind, Stitsha was a product of the turmoil in his own personal and professional life. Fuelled by the personal strife and doubt early in his career, the arts doyen went on to come up with some of the most memorable characters to grace Zimbabwean screens.

Unknown to viewers at the time, the rebellious and free-spirited Thuli was a character modelled after Mhlanga, a man regarded as a godfather of the Bulawayo arts scene.

“My mother was actually NaThuli who was played by Princess Dlamini. I always wanted to tell her story but it was difficult because I’m a man and felt like I wouldn’t do the story justice. So I had to transform and become a woman and that’s how the character of Thuli was created. So Thuli is actually me,” Mhlanga said in an interview with Sunday Life this week.

According to Mhlanga, the mean spirited Mopho was in part a reflection of his father, a man who had thrown him out of home at least seven times after he expressed his desire to make a living as a writer.

“Stitsha is a painful story because it has a painful back story. NaThuli was my mother and Thuli was me. Her rebellion was meant to represent what I went through trying to be a writer because I was chucked out of home seven times by my father who didn’t believe I could make a living as a writer.

“He would say I sent you to Agro Industries College so that you could make a decent living. Instead I wanted to become a writer so whenever I came home I would find my belongings on the doorstep. Mopho, Thuli’s brother, largely represented my father,” said Mhlanga.

However, despite the Thuli-Mopho conflict being at the centre of the show, Mhlanga felt that the telling of his own struggles needed to play second fiddle to the story of NaThuli. Mhlanga’s mother had a protracted struggle against a white farmer before independence and her indomitable spirit had inspired him to bring her life to the stage and later on to the small screen.

“She had a fight with a white man who lived in the farm across the river from her homestead. One day her goats ate some of his plants and he retaliated by capturing and locking them up. She went to plead with him and he did not want to understand and so she freed the animals herself. He didn’t take kindly to this and started shooting at the goats. My mother lost four goats that day,” Mhlanga said.

The conflict between the two was to come to a dramatic end a few months later.

“A few months later his sheep also strayed into our homestead and my mother also locked them up. He came and freed them himself but as he was doing so she started hacking at them with an axe. The farmer reported to the all-white police station nearby and that was the first time that my mother was arrested,” Mhlanga said.

According to the Amakhosi founder however, bringing his vision to life was not a walk in the park, as the famed Amakhosi cultural centre’s coffers were still bare at that stage.

“Stitsha was an example of what we call theatre of the poor. We wanted to have music as the centre of the project but we could not afford musical instruments. So instead we went for the African drum. In a sense the drum became a whole orchestra.

“Not many people know this but that technique was groundbreaking for Zimbabwean theatre. Now whenever you go to any drama rehearsals you find a drum but I doubt many know where that started and the circumstances behind it,” Mhlanga said.

Solving the music equation was half the battle however, as Mhlanga had to contend with those at the helm at Montrose Studios (ZBC), where the recording of the drama was supposed to be facilitated.

“Montrose Studios was hell for us. Even nowadays when I pass near there I feel like I’m going to hell. You would get there and hear the people that work there saying that we should get our young actors away from them because they smell bad.

“We had a young man called Thula Dlamini who had such a passion for TV. He would even sleep at Montrose just to get the necessary know-how. They hated him more than most because he had dreadlocks,” Mhlanga said.

The conflict between Mhlanga and the powers that were at Montrose was to reach fever pitch some time during the recording of the show, which resulted in Stitsha going off air in the middle of its run on TV. The tug of war inevitable found its way into Mhlanga’s scripts.

“The murder scene at the end of Stitsha was intentional. I used that scene as a metaphor. Mopho stood for not only for my father but also Montrose Studios which I felt stood in the way of creativity and therefore needed to die. So the success of Stitsha was not the success of Cont but the success of young kids from the townships who felt that they should get a platform to tell their story,” Mhlanga said. The Sunday News