Once the play is over and theatre-goers have gone home, Awa Bagayogo, an actor in Mali’s capital Bamako, breaks into a smile at another completed performance.

One of a small and often maligned number of actors in the conservative West African country, she and her friends stage plays about topics like migration while outside the capital, a jihadist conflict rages.

Staging plays in Bamako, though, means coping not only with Mali’s daily struggles, but also with family resistance, social prejudice about acting and a lack of funding. For most, only the love of their art keeps actors motivated.

“We want to the tell the stories of our lives, the lives of young people,” says Bagayogo. “We have to be able to stage what we think.”

Mali is struggling to put down a jihadist revolt which first broke out when rebels captured the north of the country in 2012 – just when Bagayogo began dreaming of becoming an actor.

The conflict has since killed thousands of people, and spread to the centre of the country as well as to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Bagayogo, 23, a dramatic arts graduate, says that she is motivated by “passion”, which was first kindled by watching her favourite film actors.

Mali has a strong tradition of indigenous theatre known as “koteba”, but poverty and war mean few students now opt for theatre.

Battling prejudice

Bamako has two drama schools which produce about ten graduates every year. They are often viewed with suspicion.

“There are a lot of problems, but we stick together, like a family,” says Bagayogo, sitting with the nine other actors in her performance.

The main barrier, according to the actors, is how Malians perceive their profession.

“Families are against it,” says Aly Badra Dembele, 20, a student at the National Arts Academy of Bamako, adding that the older generation thinks theatre is a waste of time.

“A lot of people think actors are thugs,” he says.

One of Dembele’s friends, who declined to be named, pays a high price for his passion.

His parents forbade him from appearing on stage for years, dismissing plays as “degrading”. And he and his uncle, with whom he lives in Bamako, no longer speak.

“We’re there for him,” says another of his friends, who declined to be named, adding that actors need to stick together.

Dembele, the more optimistic of the troupe, says there’s no point to being an actor in Mali unless “you give it everything”.

But others were more dispassionate, pointing out getting a theatre company job in Mali, as in other sectors, often depends on family contacts.

The profession is poorly paid, too. All have other jobs on the side. Some work as masons, for example, and others have internships with the customs agency.

“We’ve got to eat,” Dembele says.

’The adventure’

Theatre has always been prolific in Mali because of its important place in the culture of the country’s largest ethnic group, the Bambara.

But traditional performances are giving way to plays with contemporary social themes, often financed by the government, international organisations and NGOs.

Although it received no funding, Bagayogo’s troupe recently staged a play about migrating to Europe – a perilous journey across desert and sea which they simply call “the adventure”.

Many Malians dream of migrating because of poor job prospects and war at home.

Performed in an open-air night club, the play also featured in one of Mali’s few theatre festivals in December, called “Les Practicables” after the French term for modular stage.

Lack of funds means actors often put on plays where they can, such as outdoors, or in courtyards, says Lamine Diarra, the festival director.

Traditional theatre, and stage classics such as Shakespeare, are still the model for most young actors. However, the new funded social theatre is opening doors.

“[It] allows us to perform and travel a bit, I was able to go to Sikasso,” said Dembele, referring to a city in southern Mali.

Such an event is rare in a country where war has dramatically curtailed freedom of movement. Northern Mali, where the army is battling jihadists, is out of bounds.

Even so, Bagayogo said in ten years she sees herself far from where she is today thanks to her life in theatre.

“Not necessarily far geographically, but in mentality,” she says.