Songs of Migration

A trip to the to the theatre. In Jozi it's my first time. While I visit the theatre in the UK frequently, I am not in step with the venues and schedules of shows here. My impression so far has been that there is the famous Market Theatre, fabled point of resistance against apartheid (but I have no idea what quality of shows they put on now) and a load of touring shows from Europe and the US, interspersed with Afrikaans comedies and bland Whitney Houston impersonators. It turns out I couldn't have been more wrong.

The Joburg Theatre is a big 70s building at the top of Braamfontein. I don't know what I had been expecting, but the space is massive, more South Bank than regional playhouse. A grand entrance hall with escalators, high ceilings, a cafe and lots of room for mingling outside the vast auditorium.

We had come to see Hugh Masekela's production of Songs of Migration, a story of the African experience, where men and women frequently travel long distances to find work, away from home for months and years.
The audience was overwhelmingly black, and raucous. Whether that's because there were local drama students in the cast, and the whole balcony seemed to be filled with friends and family, cheering every nifty turn and perfectly pitched note, or that the material generally invited calls and participation, I am not sure. It made for a lively atmosphere.

As soon as the performance started I realised that it would be even better than I expected. The cast of 20-odd was impressive, all singing with individual voices, dancing superbly, and performing without the over-acting that often happens with performers primarily trained as singers. The whole show was narrated by the indefatigable Hugh Masekela, dressed in a snazzy black and purple suit and a loud tie. He threw in amazing trumpet solos, all improvised. The guy is 74, but he performs and dances like a much younger guy. It was a joy to see him sing at the top of his voice, to boogie with the much younger women, to dance his peculiar style: he bends his knees low, almost kneeling, and walks with a groovy shuffle that Michael Jackson could have learned from.

The locally famous Gloria Bosman, a soul/opera diva with an interesting choice of boldly patterned dresses, is his partner on stage. They take turns narrating the lives of poor workers flocking from the country to the city in search of work in the mines (for men) and as housekeepers (for women), of the people left behind, and of the people travelling from faraway places to South Africa to improve their lot, to flee persecution and war.

For most of the first half I was quite lost, as most of the songs were in either Khosa, Zulu or Sesotho, so I was guessing the meaning of the story from the acting, and the occasional narration in English.Even the old Apartheid SA flag hoisted as a backdrop wasn't familiar to me. I just let the songs flood over me, enjoying the moment and slight dizziness of confusion. In the interval Moeketse and Corlette, my South African friends, explained the jokes that everyone laughed at, like the young man courting a girl while wiggling suggestively and it seemed involuntarily. Apparently there is a kind of herbal Viagra, which is popular and much joked about. 

Much ado in Delhi

Much Ado about Nothing, at the Noel Coward theatre now until the 27th, is one of those fun comedies that can be played for laughs even though we don't really subscribe to its outdated notions of marriage and gender relationship anymore. It's popular, but even though it's the RSC I wouldn't rush out to see yet another version. But this production is different. The transfer of the court of Messina to modern day Delhi is inspired. Great music, fantastic costumes, amazing accents and mannerisms, spot-on characterisation, all of that really made the theme of the play sing.
Don Pedro's soldiers are UN peacekeeping groups returned from an ambiguously described venture, some wearing medic badges on their blue berets. Carrying khaki duffel bags, they are full of spirit when they arrive, variously optimistic and cynical, but all of them raring for a party.
The women consist of a full range of modern Indian types, from the dutiful daughter happy to have her marriage arranged; the glamour-puss fashion victim flashing bling handbags and a gem-encrusted smartphone; the intellectual thinker and wit, a woman of many words, most of them brilliant. The caste system with its master-servant relationship fits spot-on into Shakespeare's cultural system. The floor sweeper and the simpleton housekeeper are perfect representations from Bollywood movies, making the clown scenes sing. In these characters, as in many of the Hindi outbursts and asides, I felt that as Europeans we were only scratching the surface of the performance. I felt as if we were missing some of the subtleties, something borne out by the laughs coming from the large Indian audience.
The set was very serviceable, with a lot of balconies and a tree used for the wedding decorations and a swing. The red drapes ran into the lighting rig, which resulted in an unprecedented theatrical event in the second half: The show was interrupted by the stage manager, who came on to tell us that the drape was stuck and needed to be unhooked manually. A rigger climbed into the grid and unspooled the clip wires so that the drape could be undone from the stage. It was quite the shock to see the fourth wall broken like this. The actors did very well, carrying on until stopped, and the actress taking down the drapes silently communicated panic without interrupting the dialogue on stage.
The climax of the actual play came with the supposed burial of Hiero, re-designed into a burning platform under a dark sky pouring with rain. As everyone was wearing white, the segue into the happy conclusion of weddings, dancing and merriment was easily accomplished.
This play is part of the RSC's Olympic year series of Shakespeare interpretations from every corner of the planet. I wish I had seen more of them now. It's still on for a few days in London, but I hope that it will tour and be revived many times. It is one of the best Shakespeare productions I have seen in a long time.