National Theatre Is Dying

It appears the National Theatre is painfully dying slowly, following the demise of its recent past manager, Efo Kodjo Mawugbe, 57, who must be turning in his grave apparently at this development.

The once beautiful edifice, built by the Rawlings regime to boost the creative industry in the early part of 1992, is fast deteriorating, making a case for the lack of maintenance culture that has bedeviled the country.

The edifice, which would be twenty years in December this year, was constructed by the Chinese to create a platform for actors and other entertainers in the creative industry to showcase the country’s diversely rich culture.

The National Theatre in the 1990s was a centre of attraction for entertainment where people including school children go to have fun.

The giant edifice unearthed notable acting talents of the likes of Kofi Adu, alias Agya Koo, Akrobotu, Bob Okala from “Key Soap Concert Party” and music groups like the Nananom and Patty Riders an all rap group from the Kiddafest’’ programmes, just to mention a few who are doing great in the creative industry.

The sad story of the National Theatre is similar to the once famous Aburi Botanical Gardens at Aburi in the Eastern Region. The once beautiful garden with trees dating over three centuries, under the care of the Department of Parks and Gardens, for lack of maintenance is now serving as a funeral palour, where corpses are laid in state.

The Herald can report that the National Theatre is deteriorating very fast. The only new feature of it is the furniture inside the main hall, which was recently changed.

The hall of the theatre has a very pungent odour, as a result of water leaking from the air conditions unto the worn-out carpets.

Also observed was that parts of the cemented floor on the hallway were exposed, because the carpet is torn. The lights were also not functioning.

Out of the theatre, the beautiful water fountain, decorating its frontage has turned green with spirogyra and very smelly; water has been left there for months without being pumped out.

Last Wednesday October 17, 2012 some young men were spotted by The Herald, scrubbing the pool to allow the stagnant water flow away.

The Herald is reliably informed that because of the deteriorating facilities at the theatre, event organizers have refused to book the venue for their programmes thereby creating a gaping hole in maximization of internally generated funds for the theatre.

All traffic in terms of events venue have been directed to the ‘’Dome’’ of the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC) because of the deteriorating facilities at the premier National Theatre.