Malawi has talent – Eric Mabedi

Kwathu Drama Group’s veteran actor and director Eric Mabedi popularly known as Jakobo in the comic circles has said the country has talent which only needs to be nurtured and supported.

Mabedi said this over the weekend in Mulanje when Kwathu which is the only vibrant Chichewa group premiered a play titled Mwatilakwira.

At the moment there is no support. We can do much better and this is why as a group we want to try as much to utilise this talent,” he said.

The group last weekend brought in new faces in their latest play Mwatilakwira.

The actor also called upon National Theatre Association of Malawi (Ntam) to start looking into helping the industry learn more about theatre marketing.

“Much as actors need training to upgrade their acting skills, many are already way up in this area, all what we are looking for now is to gain skills in theatre marketing looking at the changes now,” he said.

Mabedi said it is tough now for drama groups to hold performances due to lack of funding and that this has also been compounded by technology where people spend most of their times in homes watching movies.

“We need to do more to entice people to come and watch plays, we need to convince people that stage plays are still there and worthy watching and that is where we are talking about theatre marketing,” said the actor.

Mabedi also bemoaned the lack of proper venues in the country.

“We are still crying for proper venues to hold performances. We need venues like Blantyre Cultural Centre which at the moment is still in a pathetic state but as the creative industry we have no choice but to continue holding our performances there,” he said.

Kwathu will stage Mwatilakwira at Blantyre Cultural Centre tomorrow which is a holiday.

He then hailed MultiChoice Malawi through GOtv for their sponsorship.

“We need support from the corporate world to assist us take our plays to all the three regions. So we would like to thank GOtv for always being there and they have helped us advertise our new play which we could not have managed on our own,” said the veteran actor.