The Many Voices of English

On the 2nd of March we went to the Pfalzbau theatre in Ludwigshafen and watched four plays, which are dramatic adaptions of four short stories from the anthology "The Many Voices of English".

This book is part of our A-level exam in English, that we are going to write soon.

The first short story "An Outpost of Progress" was written by Joseph Conrad and deals with the colonial encounters. The two Belgian men Kayerts and Carlier come to an ivory trading station in the Congo, where they fail to manage the situation and aren't able to bring civilization into the foreign country. There they lose their moral and in the end also their lives as well.

The next short story "The Force of Circumstance", written by Somerset Maugham, also describes the colonial encounters and moreover the fear of going native. Guy and Doris, a happy couple, live on an outpost, when Doris recognizes a Malay woman. At first Guy hesitates, but then he tells Doris that he had an affair with this woman and they got three children. Doris doesn't seem to be angry, but after six months she leaves Guy and goes back to England. She can't live together with a man, who had an affair with a native woman. After Doris is gone, Guy takes the Malay woman and the children back to his house.

The third story "Dead Men's Path", by Chinua Achebe, is about cross cultural experiences, the clash of cultures and traditions. Michael Obi is the new headmaster of Ndume central school. He and his wife Nancy work hard to turn the school into a better place. When he recognizes a traditional path in the school compound he closes it down. Then the village priest Ani wants him to reopen it and tries to explain the religious meaning of the path. Nevertheless Obi doesn't reopen it. The next day, the school and the garden have been destroyed. Furthermore, an inspector comes to check the school and writes a bad report.

The last story "Good Advice is Rarer than Rubies" by Salman Rushdie presents the colonial consequences. The beautiful Miss Rehana comes to the British consulate, because she needs a permission to travel to England. The old advice giver Ali makes her the offer to give her some advice, but Miss Rehena has no money and so he gives her the advice without any payment. When Miss Rehana comes out of the office she looks very happy. After she told him that she didn't get the permission, Ali is very confused. But then she explains that she wants to stay in Pakistan. There she can live the life she wants and doesn't need to marry an unknown man.

All in all, the performance was great.

The five actors made a good job and visualized the stories very well. So we were able to remember everything we have learned and internalised the meaning of the stories. The stage design was simple, but enough. The music and the direct involving of the audience made the play exciting, too. The only negative thing was, that some details in the stories have been changed, but nevertheless it was a successful performance and a welcome change to our stressful study in the last days before our A-level exams.

Laura Bassek and Vera Thiele, 13