Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

In Africa, there is the Nairobi Hope Theatre, which has taken on the mission of education for sustainable development and contributes to it with its productions. It uses the means of political satire and adapts the tradition of Greek satyr plays and Aristotelian comedy for their concern.

Paper long abstract:

In 2015 the 70th General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and formulated the 17 Global Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) as well as the World Program on Education for Sustainable Development; the prehistory to this is older and started already in 1972. To achieve the goals the countries programs for education for sustainable development are to be launched by the member states; in Germany, for example, this coordinated by the German UNESCO in cooperation with different institutions at federal and state level.

In Africa, there is the Nairobi Hope Theatre, which has taken on the mission of education for sustainable development and contributes to it with its productions. It uses the means of political satire on the one hand and adapts the tradition of Greek satyr plays and Aristotelian comedy on the other. It uses, I argue, political humour in these forms to both tell the story of sustainability to a wider in and outside of Africa in the form of drama, and to educate young people entering the ensemble about it so that they can make their own contribution to sustainable development education.

By analyzing selected plays, my paper will demonstrate that productions of the Nairobi Hope Theatres are in the tradition of the Greek satyr play, and that the humour initiated in them follows a narrative and structure that is suitable for providing political enlightenment as satire.