Construction Of The Theme Of Drugs And Substance Abuse In The Play Genre At The Kenya Schools And Colleges Drama Festival, 2013-2015.

ABSTRACT

The Kenya National Drama Festival Committee usually enters into a sponsorship

agreement with other institutions to help in disseminating certain messages through

drama. One of these bodies is NACADA (National Agency for the Campaign against

Drug and Substance and Alcohol Abuse). NACADA has sponsored a number of

editions of the Festival in the hope that participants will be sensitized through the

performances on the need for demand reduction and supply suppression of alcohol and

drugs. It mostly targets the youth in Kenya who are said to be at the highest risk of

becoming victims of drug and substance abuse. The youth are mostly in schools and

most of the participants at the Festival are school going children. This study takes the

Kenya National Drama Festival as its launch pad to interrogate the theme of the

campaign against drug and substance abuse among the plays presented at the Festival

as sponsored by NACADA between 2013 and 2015. The interrogation of this theme

is intended to offer a platform of finding the best theatrical style of telling a story

against drug and substance abuse among the youth since virtually all the performers

are within the youth bracket of age. Using the Semiotics theory, the study responds

to the questions of how the structural makeup of the performances, their

characterisations as well as their language use and production design work in

synchrony as agents of the campaign against drug and substance abuse by

disseminating messages that hinge on demand reduction of drugs and alcohol as well

as their suppression of supply. This is a qualitative study that relied on content analysis

of pre-recorded performances. Data was collected through the use of observation and

interview guides. Generally, the study found out that structures of the play were not

strong as directors focussed more on the rewards rather than story-telling, plots tended

to be prescriptive, characters were not fully developed and lastly production

techniques were deployed to enhance the construction of the theme of fight against

drug and substance abuse. This study is a key plank in the generation of knowledge

on the analysis of pre-recorded performances as well as on the twin issue of drama

and the campaign against drug and substance abuse. It is useful to educationists, antidrug abuse campaigners, theatre researchers as well as the general reader.