Woza Albert! is classic and relevant SA theatre
PERHAPS it is not a coincidence that with the ANC’S centenary celebrations this year, the Market Theatre opens its 2012 programme with two poignant plays boast theatrical intelligence and are reflective of SA’S history.
Somewhere on the Border and Woza Albert! open simultaneously this week and whether or not the Market Theatre is making a statement with the two productions, the timing is apt.
Woza Albert! is a classic that changed the face of SA theatre and is one of the shows for which the country is best known internationally. This celebrated piece of lively satire, written by Percy Mtwa, Mbongeni Ngema and Barney Simon, explores what would have happened had Jesus Christ come to SA during apartheid.
While some may have seen it many times before, there’s an audience which is yet to see it. So it becomes about how you bring something new to it for those who have seen it and how you stay true to its essence for those who will be seeing for the first time.
The answer might lie with those involved in this new run of the play, which is directed by emerging talent, Prince Lamla, and features exceptional performers in Mncedisi Shabangu and Hamilton Dlamini.
And it’s the three’s history and affinity to Woza Albert! that is interesting.
Lamla can be remembered for his brilliant play, Coal Yard, which won the Zwakala Festival and had a highly successful run at the Market Theatre about seven years ago.
“I graduated at the Market Lab in 2002 and my graduation piece was Woza Albert! I remember that same year the play had a run with actors Siyabonga Twala and Tony Kgoroge. My connection with it goes back to the fact that it premiered at the Market Theatre in the year of my birth in 1981. I wanted to do it again after drama school, but from Mncedisi Shabangu’s advice as my teacher, I realised I had to establish myself first. I went home to Qwaqwa and started working with a friend of mine, Ofentse Bodibe, writing and directing. We did Coal Yard together and it was influenced by Woza Albert! stylistically, with the use of an empty stage and the physical theatre,” says Lamla.
Ten years after graduating, he approached the Market Theatre about doing the piece he loves and is grateful to artistic director Malcom Purkey for the opportunity.
“Woza Albert! will keep coming back, it’s a classic and we have to embrace it. But besides apartheid, it’s about humans trying to survive and I gravitate towards ordinary people’s stories. This is not about me doing the piece, it’s about the piece wanting to be done,” he says.
The play is known for its immense physicality and previous shows have had very masculine men. Here Lamla is working with the hefty Shabangu and Dlamini and that’s something different.
Shabangu’s view about Woza Albert! is that three of them will always interpret it differently because of where and when they were born. Dlamini was born in the 1960s in Sebokeng, Shabangu in the 1970s in the homelands and Lamla in the 1980s in Qwaqwa. Although cut off in the homelands, Shabangu was aware of what was happening from the 1980s and 1990s and he wants the play to affect him the way the 1980s did.
But for him it’s not political. He’s not one to say how relevant the play is and how the past shapes the future. The reason he’s doing Woza Albert! is that it is good theatre, period.
“I’m interested in making good theatre. This play changed the face of South African theatre because it’s done cleverly and we should learn from it. But with it we should reflect how SA theatre has changed and what it has changed into. My friends and I always talk about returning back to the theatrical source. Woza Albert! is that source and that’s why I have been a fan of the play for so long,” he says.
His history with it involves watching the documentary of the making of Woza Albert! with his uncle in a Beta Max tape in the early 80s, something they were not supposed to see, but had access to underground.
Talking about bringing something new to it now, he says, “In SA when you talk of the early 1980s, you will hear about the Beta Max. From then on we had VHS and now the DVD.
“Woza Albert! has travelled that way as well and that’s how I have travelled as a physical theatre maker. The tricky part comes with the technology and mime of the time. The mime I taught Prince Lamla is technologically advanced, but you can’t adapt Woza Albert! into any era,” he says.
“It has its limitations and its images are so old. But what makes it interesting is that out of all that, there are two guys who are having fun and having a debate where the reality and fantasy are perfectly juxtaposed.”
Shabangu’s main drive is grooming young black directors and he believes that the responsibility to do so lies in seasoned actors such as himself.
Dlamini is best known for his TV work, but his theatre credits include Shabangu’s Ten Bush and the William Kentridge and Handspring Puppet Company’s collaboration, Woyzeck on the Highveld.
It’s a dream for him to be doing Woza Albert! as it was the play to see in the 1980s and in his generation, everybody wanted to do it, but never got the opportunity.
“I can’t call myself an actor if I haven’t done Woza Albert! I did TV to pay the bills and to elevate my profile, but I’m a theatre lover.
“And I could not have done Woza Albert! before. It needs experience. The play took the world by surprise and I feel the country is scared to do something that is as challenging,” he says.
He is clear about his feelings over the state of SA politics and feels the country hasn’t changed. Woza Albert! may be a period piece, but he feels the issues are still the same.
“We’re performing this for our kids to see and learn from. This show can run for ever, like Animal Farm,” he adds.
But he strongly believes in Woza Albert! as a tool for the development of young talent and growing actors.
“If our actors can do this and interpret it in their own way, it means our theatre can grow. We must make shows that are better than Woza Albert!”