...Witches can be right,
Giants can be good.
You decide what's right,
You decide what's good....
One of musical theatre diva Bernadette Peters's most poignant signature songs is "No one is Alone" from the masterful Into the Woods by living legend, Steven Sondheim.

Apart from the sheer beauty of this poignant ballad, the concept of witches being right and giants being good is a valuable one. Life, stories and the people who inhabit them, dwell mostly in shades of grey: seldom are we clear-cut black or white, good or evil, right or wrong. And if we are, that is rarely interesting. It is the murky unclear areas which dwell in the spaces between the two extremes, in truth and in fiction, which make for good stories.

In the last while I have been disappointed and irritated by storytelling opportunities lost. So often a potentially great story is simply mediocre when the writer plays it safe and easy by presenting characters as stereotypical, predictable cardboard cut-outs instead of multi-dimensional interesting personalities with a range of flaws and complexities.

One recent such example was the locally-made movie White Gold about the arrival on indentured labour from India 150 years ago. The movie was a valiant attempt which was beautifully shot with some exquisite moments – but the blandly-written characters felt like they were mostly all straight from a Victorian melodrama, just missing the fake moustache and crimson-lined cloak. The colonial land-owner was sly, mean and nasty, the doe-eyed love interest was textbook Mills and Boon, the surprise hero was mysterious and silent, and there was the mandatory wouldn't-hurt- a-fly fat mummy's boy and the scarey uber-strict father... You could see the punch-line coming before the opening credits had rolled. What a shame. Where is the light and shade, where is the character development, where is the complexity of emotions, where is the intelligent dialogue and the grappling of difficult issues and real hurt?

Watching White Gold I felt as though the script-writer was treating me like a five year old. In comparison, at Cinema Nouveau I saw the sublime, astonishing, emotionally layered, beautifully-crafted filmed version of A Disappearing Number by Théâtre de Complicité, directed by Simon McBurney which weaves together the story of two love affairs, separated by a century and a continent. It tells of the heartbreaking collaboration between the greatest natural mathematician of the 20th century, Srinivasa Ramanujan, a penniless Brahmin from Madras in South India, and his British counterpart the brilliant Cambridge don GH Hardy.

The characters were real – their pain was felt, their joy was shared. They were complex, interesting, flawed and beautiful. The audience felt empathy, the audience cared about them. It was writing and theatre at its finest.

If script and character is important on film, it is a million times more so on stage. There is not much in the way of special effects to disguise the writing. I am so aware of the richness of the potential stories which can be told – especially in contemporary South Africa. Heavens, one just has to open the newspapers to be inspired about real life global stories; think of the love triangle of the model, the rugby-player and the cougar; the distressed British honeymooning husband mourning the death of his murdered wife; the rescue of the Chiliean mineworkers, and the tragedy of their New Zealand counterparts; a young British commoner about to become a princess and wearing an icon's ring. Fact offers no shortage of inspiration.

We live in a complex country going through a difficult time – we encounter phenomenal stories every day at every turn. It is up to us as theatre makers to do justice to the remarkable. Local theatre has some great story-telling role models: Greig Coetzee; Rajesh Gopie; Neil Coppen; Senzo Mthethwa / Kumseela Naidoo; Madoda Ncayiyana; Bheki Mkhwane / Ellis Pearson and others.

We have all the ingredients to make astonishing original Durban theatre – let us all look out for the fascinating stories in our everyday lives and help each other to tell them with care, thought and integrity.

Live theatre is such an ephemeral medium. Once the curtain comes down and the applause abates, the experience is over. This is simultaneously the magic and the limitation of the industry – it is all in the moment.

Staging theatre involves an enormous investment of many hours, big money and huge resources and is at best only ever seen by a few hundred people. For me, when I watch the stage-hands pack up the set at the end of a season of beautiful theatre, one feels empty from the sheer finality of it all.

Like many, I have enjoyed the Cinema Nouveau series of screening "live" ballet, opera and drama: what a treat to see Alan Bennett's brilliantly intelligent and witty, The Habit of Art at the National Theatre, on the big screen. For those of us who don't travel internationally as much as we would like, it is a true thrill to be able to come close to the West End and see productions we would usually only ever be able to read about, or see on YouTube clips. Sure it is not close to the real thing – the medium of cinema means we are removed from the sweat and grease-paint of the live experience – but it is a fair replacement. I for one want to applaud Cinema Nouveau for their vision and innovation in bringing live theatre to the big screen and look forward to their new seas

Incidentally, I am hoping that the fabulous Hand Sprung Puppet's production of the World War One children's theatre epic, Warhorse, makes it to our cinemas at some point. That is one production I would love to have seen.

While the intention is never to allow filmed versions of theatre to replace the live experience, there is merit in great theatre being filmed and shown to a wider audience than the original product could reach. It also serves as a hugely valuable tool in terms of archiving, institutional memory, education, audience development and research.

I have sat through some totally remarkable theatre – virtually everything by the sublime KickstArt; the delicate whimsical pieces by the visionary Neil Coppen (who we are delighted has won the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for theatre recently) and some gems at the Hilton, Grahamstown National Arts and Musho Festivals. Talking to colleagues, the sense is that it would be great to have filmed some of these productions either for a South African version of the Cinema Nouveau series, or for South African TV or domestic DVD release.

Understandably there are cost, copyright and production challenges, but surely this would be a helpful process for the industry. It would take theatre to a wider audience and give it a life after the final curtain.

And while considering theatre beyond the stage, another thought is to consider using new technology in the form of downloads; online TV; ipods and You Tube to capture theatre in its varying forms. Live theatre as a medium has by and large not made a leap of faith to the Facebook and Twitter generation where perhaps there would be marketing and audience-development opportunities to further explore.

Another powerful medium is radio. So much of the work we see at Musho for example – which is a festival of small one and two person theatre – would translate well into radio format. Surprisingly radio drama is making a come-back internationally: the BBC has a full schedule of radio plays and readings, and the more enlightened local radio stations keep a stable of actors and writers employed creating theatre for radio. In fact the BBC has been running international talent-hunt competitions for radio drama scripts to develop. Probably about a third of all theatre being staged in South Africa has a cast of one or two people and props, costumes and sets which fit into the boot of a car, so it would surely not be a big stretch for this to be modified for radio.

The media houses are in a flurry currently preparing to pitch for a new radio station licence. I appeal to the winning consortium to create, develop and broadcast radio plays and readings. It would make such a difference to the industry at large, and would be such an innovative way of growing interest in the theatre experience.

I will never tire of loving the thrill of attending live performances. For me it is the most profound, energising, enlightening, beautiful and transforming experience. But if this could be extended and complemented to have further life on the big screen, small screen, laptop or radio, I for one would be most excited.

Oh, What to Wear!

Heritage month – Durban’s busiest time since the World Cup. In the city’s Celebrate Durban season, it affords literally dozens of community-based eventors the opportunity of creating non-commercial events in the suburbs as well as in the city, to embrace the city’s diverse heritage: from eating bunny chows in the Blue Lagoon, to being pampered and preened in Newlands East, to enjoying a ride on a vintage train to the Bluff and back, or watching a clown show in Chatsworth.

It was while watching Clowns Without Borders midst a noisy audience of thrilled children in Addington Primary School on the eve of Heritage Day last week that got me thinking about my personal heritage as a White female Christian English-speaking Durbanite, and what that means in a multicultural urban city of complex heritage and mixed influences.

The Addington children were invited to all dress in attire which best defined their heritage – children were wearing the colours of our flag; children from Kenya in flowing linen robes; Indian South African children in punjabis; Zulu children in sweshwe; bold colours and beads and Chinese South Africans in embroidered silk. The White and Coloured children were mostly wearing SA sports gear – soccer jerseys and springbok colours. Some went formal, with boys wearing their Sunday-best ties and jackets and girls in their party frocks.

I left Addington and popped into Glenwood Village SPAR where the staff had gone all-out to wear traditional attire as well – the colours, textures and fabrics were dazzling: beautiful saris and bright inhloko hats. In both these instances, costumes were worn with a tangible sense of pride and evident enjoyment. Backs were straighter, smiles were brighter.

I am not one for a wardrobe dilemma, but with back-to-back events on Heritage Day, I pondered what I could wear should I wish to be defined by my perception of my own personal heritage.

What on earth is the dress code for a White female Christian English-speaking Durbanite?

I have both Indian-inspired and African-inspired garments in my wardrobe which I happily and regularly wear. I have a selection of beautiful bindis to adorn my forehead, armfuls of Zulu bracelets and necklaces to decorate my body, and strappy beaded sandals for my feet. I am proud of comfortably incorporating many cultural influences into who I am, what I do and what I wear as a well-integrated Durbanite, but the thought of my wearing a sari on Heritage day made me feel a bit like a hermit crab – borrowing an external shell which is not entirely my own.

Actively supporting national sports is not remotely my scene either - I don’t have a single sporting jersey and the concept of Football Friday pretty much passed me by. So that wasn’t a viable solution.

An interesting dilemma: the reality is that I don’t choose to live within any one narrow definition of culture or heritage. It is not my mother tongue, family history, gender, sexuality, skin colour or religion which I feel defines me. Sure it is a combination of all of these things, but for me, if one is to consciously engage culturally in a contemporary South Africa, surely one should assimilate from many of the influences which surround us?

Living in a vibrant urban context which offers a smorgasboard of cultural options, surely one needs to explore outside one’s narrow cultural box to create a meaningful cultural whole. It is about looking beyond the obvious. If one loves traditional ballet for example – how wonderful to watch Dada Masilo’s quirky, contemporary and profound Swan Lake at the Hilton Festival back to back with the Indian classical Swan Lake in Mohiniyattam at the Playhouse – two dance productions informed by and inspired by the great Tchaikovsky ballet. But neither classical ballet as we know it.

Perhaps ultimately for me, heritage is a patchwork quilt of what we respond to in terms of cuisine, dress, religion, art and legacy. It is about the company we keep, the projects we do and the choices we make. Heritage has become perhaps as much about attitude as ancestry, about preferences over genetics, about affinity as well as history.

And my Heritage Day wardrobe dilemma. I chose proudly Durban – a floral floor length cotton sun frock and leather pumps both designed and made locally by Amanda Laird Cherry....and I pinned my “I love Durban” button onto my handbag.

Caption
As part of the city’s Celebrate Durban season, Addington Primary School grade 3, 4 and 5 learners were treated to a performance by Clowns Without Borders ahead of the Heritage Day long weekend. The children wore heritage-themed costume especially.

Pictured are learners:
Front row:
Zinzi Dube (9)
Wilile Khumalo (9)
Neliswa Mkhize (9)

Back row:
Shanaaz Lopes (8)
Ferrial Yusuf (9)
Joel John (8)

Pic Illa Thompson

For those of us who work in the arts, we have probably the most significant season coming up: September is traditionally heritage month, and there is a flurry of festival activity over the next short while.

The middle of the year pretty much flat-lined as a result of the soccer, meaning we didn’t have our usual midyear July bonanza season, which by inference, has made the Michaelmas season feel even more busy and brisk.

We are feeling a tad breathless and overwhelmed by the multitude of options available to us over the next few weeks. I am torn between feeling kid-in-a-candy-shop excited, and emotionally exhausted at the prospect of what this entails. The people of KZN are spoilt for choice of things to do over the next while. The utterances of “I am bored” must be banished from the KZN vocabulary until further notice!

The biggie at this time of the year is the city’s annual Celebrate Durban season which sees the city co-ordinate a season of roughly 45 community-based, heritage themed events and projects.

On the festival arena, September sees the Witness Hilton Arts festival – which for lovers of good theatre and music is an oasis in the cultural desert. This week sees the every-visionary Centre for Creative Art’s annual Jomba contemporary dance festival open at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre; Shared History: the Indian Experience national festival has Durban events to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Indians in South Africa; the Durban International Blues festival showcases some of our country’s best blues talent; Cell C’s annual school street music festival sees the streets of Albert Park echo with beautiful music on Heritage Day; Glenwood Community Festival hosts an array of events including the Glenwood community proms on Friday 17 July with the KNZPO at Glenwood Prep School, the day-long cultural showcase in the form of the annual Indian Ocean Blue Lagoon Festival on 11 September, there is a story-telling festival hosted at the Durban Art Gallery; there is a Durban International Music Festival at the ICC featuring many big names in SA music, and there is a music festival in KwaMashu. And I am sure there are others.

There are also some significant stand alone events happening: tonight is the fun, innovative Red Eye event at the Durban Art Gallery and in and around the City Hall precinct; the annual Shall We Dance ballroom and Latin American dance showcase is on this month at the Playhouse, and Kickstart is staging their second drama of the year: the profound and moving Duet for One which pairs two of the industry’s best, Johannesburg’s Michael Richard and Durban’s Clare Mortimer. Campus drama is busy with good drama productions at DUT and UKZN.

Going through the list feels a bit like Christmas morning – which present does one unwrap first? How does one choose what to do? And is it all really necessary?

Of course it is! I wish our calendar was like this all the time! Having a full and varied selection of opportunities means I can consistently randomly pick and choose different things to do and, hopefully, by the end of September be better informed to reflect on issues of culture, identity and heritage – which surely must, on some level, be the point of this all.

The idea is to explore beyond one’s comfort zone and to push one’s own boundaries by engaging and sampling as many totally different experiences as possible. The events extend out of central Durban, so the challenge is explore beyond your own community or suburb.

If music is your thing – try some Music Revival baroque at the Hilton Festival; head out to Umlazi to catch the 4th maskandi experience; there is blues at Wilson’s wharf; jazz at UKZN; world music Mrigya – a blend of Indian classical and world music – in the City Hall; the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra in Glenwood and in the City Hall and some bhangra, kwaito and pantsula at the Blue Lagoon.

September in and around Durban with all that is on offer, could be a really meaningful time for the people of our complex city. It is about discovering new things; being inspired by beauty in all its forms; learning about our neighbours; sampling each other’s music, dance, food and culture and spending time in the streets, venues and public places discovering ourselves and each other.

Take your vitamins. Stock up on coffee. I for one am in heaven. Come and join me....

Standing in the Loft foyer last week after watching Steven Berkoff’s astonishing lament to loneliness – From My Point of View – beautifully performed by Clare Mortimer and Darren King as part of the Playhouse’s Women’s Arts Festival, I was told that actor Bryan Hiles’ bakkie had been in an accident. Thankfully Hiles is fine, but his bakkie unfortunately isn’t.

This triggered a conversation about how this accident would impact on many people in our close-knit theatre industry in Durban because so many theatre-makers used Hiles’s bakkie to transport their sets and props.

Hiles was regularly asked to help move sets from rehearsal venue to performance space; to transport supplies from hardware store to workshop, and to help to transport shows to the festivals in Grahamstown and Hilton. All the theatrical paraphernalia which goes into making magic on stage could fit into Hiles’s bakkie. I remember regular trips with Hiles during one of our KwaSuka theatre refurbishments when, armed with grandiose ideas and a zero budget, we all mucked in to re-vamp our much-loved theatre.

Greg King and Steven Stead – the masterminds of the amazing KickstArt theatre company, often self-deprecatingly and jokingly refer to their efficient operation as “two blokes and a bakkie”. Their sets are fabulously elaborate, but in essence, their productions fit into King’s bakkie. Infuriatingly King’s bakkie was stolen a few weeks back with many of the props for their hammy gothic thriller, The Mystery of Irma Vep, still on board.

The point of this – as well as to pay tribute to generous friends and commiserate the loss of useful vehicles - is an observation about the literal size of contemporary theatrical productions.

I remember when I was working at the Playhouse in the 80s – except for the occasional experimental Loft theatre company production - it was impossible to consider moving a show in a bakkie. The Playhouse had a fleet of enormous pantechnicons and shows were transported in style. A production on the move was rather like the circus coming to town. Bystanders would watch the show being unloaded into Playhouse’s backstage area down Acutt St, and we would stand at our office windows and watch.

With the exception of the big musicals and maybe the Hilton Festival flagship production, or an invited show to the main festival in Grahamstown, shows now travel unceremoniously in bakkies, not graciously in gleaming pantechnicons.
This shift is brought about by budget limitations. We as a community of independent theatre makers quite simply don’t have the funds to stage “grand” work of that scale anymore - a trend which is echoed internationally. Decades ago the Peter Brook / Jerzy Grotowski concept of pared down or “poor theatre” came from a place of artistic experimentation. Now we have revisited the same concept but this time out of necessity, not philosophy.

The arts councils are still able to stage major works boasting elaborate sets and props occasionally, and KickstArt, with King’s phenomenal design ability, still manages to consistently create visually-lush productions, but the days of pantechnicon-size sets are pretty much over: a luxury of the past which we can now only enjoy when travelling overseas to a few well-funded theatres, or watching filmed versions of major international productions.

Thinking about this observation, I was wondering how this impacted on the product – our experience of contemporary theatre.

I think that considering that we work with depleted budgets, limited resources and a hugely decayed professional theatrical infrastructure, the end product is by-and-large remarkable.

We are forced to be super creative in our theatre design and presentation so that the work is still impactful and amazing despite our difficult reality. The use of shadow puppets, masks, innovative lighting, projections, screens and clever effects are more important than ever. If we want to be good, we as an industry are forced to be as creative, versatile, cutting-edge and progressive as possible in our presentation and design.

And if we are doing theatre on a tiny budget playing on a bare stage with a single sofa – then the writing, directing, lighting and acting has got to be damn good. The days of smoke and mirrors are (literally) gone.

This is perhaps not a bad thing, and certainly not a new thing. Some of the most profound theatre I have seen didn’t have remarkable sets and detailed props. I don’t even much remember the costumes. But I do remember the story, the performances and how it made me feel. These days, I don’t need a pantechnicon full of scenery to move me to tears or for me to whoop with joy, or in the case of Clare and Darren’s Berkoff the other night, to feel immense pain, sadness and empathy.

Reflecting on what we have seen on the Durban stages alone, one just has to think of the brilliance of Wit; Tin Bucket Drum; Frontlines; Mein Soldaat; Boolulu Uncle; and all of the work of Matthew Ribnick; Pieter Dirk Uys; Godfrey Johnson; Ellis Pearson and Bheki Mkhwane and Greig Coetzee – in fact virtually any of the shows at the annual Musho festival – a platform designed for this very purpose.

Looking at the Hilton festival line-up this year, Sue Clarence and Doreen Stanley have found the very best examples of such intimate and brilliant theatre. Look out for Kaput, Butcher Brothers, Dirt, Raiders of the Lost Aardvark and Normality – and the Andrew Buckland trilogy. In fact Buckland doesn’t even use a bakkie – his kit fits into a car boot!

Although Scott Sparrow and Emily Child (who will be performing in the delicious sexy Steven Berkoff’s Decadence at Hilton) perform on an empty stage with literally just a sofa, I promise, theatre doesn’t get more breath-taking; memorable and masterful than this! Watching Sparrow and Child in full flight makes you realise that suddenly backdrops and curtains just don’t seem that important any more....

One attempts not to pigeon-hole arts projects into old-style cultural boxes - we have certainly learned our lesson in the old South Africa as to how damaging, limiting and hurtful this can be. But as an observer of arts and culture trends in this town, it is interesting to note that the Durban Indian theatre-makers have united in finding a particularly vociferous, loud voice with a slew of new productions examining the South African Indian identity, all being staged on our city’s stages at pretty much the same time.

It is simplistic to suggest the work is narrowly appropriate only to one segment of our population, when we are working towards a national or even global voice of finding commonality and shared references in all of our stories.

As a white Durban woman, this observation comes with its own cultural baggage – as a voyeur not a participant - but in a sea of tribute shows and hand-me down narratives, it is tremendously exciting to discover a smorgasboard of new South African productions of varying quality.

Interestingly the Indian experience is not only told by ID-carrying South African Indians – but also by South Africans with a close affinity to, and understanding of, the Indian culture. Senzo Mthethwa’s life story is in itself quite remarkable. He grew up as a Zulu boy living in Reservoir Hills learning Tamil and playing the tabla with his adopted family. His life story is told with charm, authenticity and self-deprecation in Boolulu Uncle which returns to the Catalina from June 16 – July 4.

Matthew Ribnik is a young white actor married to writer / director Geraldine Naidoo. He is evidently completely comfortable and respectful of his wife’s culture and plays against both race and gender as an old Indian auntie re-incarnated as a Boksburg gangster in the inventive Chilli Boy which played at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, alongside the couple’s new production Monkey Nuts.

Loose creative collectives are forming and creating work together. Pranesh Maharaj, Melanie Kisten and their colleagues are working hard putting together a variety of productions simultaneously. Maharaj and his Polart Production Company recently presented Tuckshop – a new musical drama about life in and around an informal tuckshop on the border of Phoenix and KwaMashu. Last weekend Melanie Kisten staged her lively fun comedy-dance spectacular Kambakht Ishq in the Rajput Hall in Chatsworth. Featuring a large cast of trained dancers, her leading characters were all instantly recognisable personality-stereotypes to be found in suburbs such as Chatsworth.

Kubeshan and Kumseela Naidoo and their company are key players in the Durban theatre scene. Their work spans the spectrum from distinctly adult comedy with the Dingalings series, to children’s theatre which is staged regularly at the Catalina during the school holidays (Cinderella will be staged later this month); to original works. They produced Boolulu Uncle and Kubeshan has created a new anecdotal situational comedy – The House Husband – which is currently touring.

Ashwin Singh is politically in-tune with the dynamics of living in a culturally complex city and his more serious work reflects that. His new drama, Shooting, about two young boys growing up in an extended family which features Dhaveshan Govender can now be seen at the Catalina.

Interestingly the local casino venues play their part by hosting a constant stream of commercial, light Indian-themed entertainment.

Many of these smaller works featuring a dozen characters played by one performer are informed by the watershed production Out of Bounds by Rajesh Gopie and directed by Tina Johnson who set the tone a decade ago in gently finding a way to tell the colourful and character-full story of a typical extended family and its complications and eccentricities. His legacy extends to his masterful The Coolie Odyssey directed by Heinrich Reisenhofer, about the indenture of workers from India for the sugar plantations in 1860’s Natal which is considered a contentious and often neglected political issue in today's national dialogue.

One cannot talk about distinctly Durban Indian themed theatre without tipping one’s hat to the tireless work of Essop Khan and Mohammed Ali who have produced and toured dozens of local-themed work. Their new production – billed as a chat-room romance - is Marriage on Line

Adding to the work found on stages, there are major players in the movie industry who form an instrumental part of the narrative and there have been a constant stream of novels covering similar cultural ground.

A major player in this resurgence is Lotus fm and its re-introduction of radio dramas. One hopes that with all the cut-backs, SABC has the foresight and vision not to tamper with these precious vehicles of creativity.

For me personally a huge influence was critic and theatre activist Ketan Lakhani who was fearlessly outspoken in his commentary.

I have a sense that the legacy begun by luminaries such as Ronnie Govender, Kessie Govender and the creative people who worked with the Asoka, Work-in-Progress theatre company, The Hermit, Upstairs and original Stable theatre structures, is being handed to a new generation of writers and performers to continue to grapple and unpack the complexities, foibles and joys of being a South African Indian in Durban.

It is especially appropriate in the context of the 1860 project underway, the by-line for which is “Every Indian South African has a story to tell.”