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GLENDORA - Michigan State University Flipbook PDF
Africa. Under the guidance of Barney Simon, an experienced theatre director, their two-man show, originally called Our F
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Sarafina! cast © Brigitte Lacombe a Drama Desk Award nomination for Township Fever!; and a share of a Grammy Award for producing part of the sound track on Disney's The Lion King (ultimately he was declared ineligible for the award due to a technicality Coleman). One would have thought that with a track record like this, Ngema was destined to succeed in whatever theatrical enterprise he undertook. What then went wrong? Why did his most recent venture into musical drama fail so abysmally? What ultimately brought him down? A brief recap of his career may be helpful here. After serving a short period of apprenticeship with Gibson Kente, a popular township playwright and director, Ngema made his first big splash by teaming up with another of Kente's perform ers, Percy Mtwa, and creating a series of sketches built on the premise of Jesus Christ's second coming, this time to South
An extensive tour of the townships and black homelands followed, and the fame of Woza Albert! spread. It was an easy play to transport because the props consisted of little more than a couple of crates and a coat rack holding several items of clothing that the actors put on to impersonate various characters.
African Quarterly on the Ar Vol
GLENDORA
Africa. Under the guidance of Barney Simon, an experienced
heightened to the bit degree because they were presented, not
theatre director, their two-man show, originally called Our
through a sentimentality, but through a vitality. (Jones I 14-15)
Father Who Art in Heaven, opened at the Market Theatre in
Ngema was not one of the performers m this play, but he
Johannesburg as VVa^o Albert! and immediately made an
had trained all the actors, written the script, composed the
impact, drawing a larger black audience to that innovative
songs, and choreographed the dances. Asinamali! was his first
theatrethan any previous production (Jones 1 10). An extensive
great success as a director-produ cer,andhe often tra velled with
tour of the townships and black homelands followed, and the
the company when they performed in America, Europe, japan
fame OF Woza Albert! spread. It was an easy play to transport
and Australia, a tour that lasted more than two years.
because th e prop s c on si sted of li ttle more tha n a cou ple of crates a n d a coa t rack hold i n g severa l items of cloth i n g th a t the actors put on to impersonate various characters. To play white men, each actor clapped on a clown's nose—half a squash ball painted pink that was secured around his neck with an elastic band. This was minimalist theatre requir ing no elaborate stage sets, fine costumes or fancy equipment. It could be done anywhere. The play relied entirely on the mimetic talents of the actors, who provided all the sound effects as well as an extraordinary range of visual effects. After proving themselves locally, Ngema and Mtwa took
Whenever he returned to South Africa, he went out and searched for fresh talent, simultaneously recruiting experienced theatre professionals to help him with his next show, which he decided would celebrate South Africa's black schoolchildren who were then leading the struggle against apartheid. He rounded up twenty teenagers, 'moved them into a four-room house in Daveytown, near Johannesburg, lived with them, and trained them vocally, mentally and physically' (Jones 1 24). At the same time he developed a script, composing songs and writing lyrics as he went along. After fourteen months of hard work and fine tuning, the result was Sarafinal,
his most
theirshowto Britain, Germany and America, where itcontinued
ambitious undertaking and by far his most remunerative. After
to be a smash hit, winning awards wherever it went. It remained
opening to great applause at the Market Theatre, Ngema in
abroad for nearly three years, and in the intervals between
1987 took his cast of twenty-three youngsters to Lincoln Centre
tours, Ngema returned to South Africa, founded his own small
in New York where their engagement was extended repeatedly
theatre company called Committed Artists, and trained a group
until they moved to Broadway and played to capacity audi-
of young men in performance techniques. He has said
ences at the Cort Theatre for the next eighteen months (Jones
in 1983I established Committed Art ists with the sole aim
129). 'Sarafina!
WAS probably the highlight of my career,'
oi naming young, disadvantaged South Africans. My method-
Ngema has said, adding, 'Ironically, it was the least sophisti-
ology entailed a combination of Western and African theatrical
cated of all my work ' (Lee 34). The story-line, he admitted, 'is
techniques. Grotowsky, Stanislavsky and Peter Brook were the
not strong. IVj very simplistic...[But] I did it deliberately. I was
main Western influences on my method, particularly with their
telling it through the eyes of the kids. And those kids, wearing
experimental theatre (what Peter Brook called the immediate
those uniforms,. people just loved them. It's easier to love young
theatre). The African sphere was the most accented, especially
people than adults on stage...For the first time in South Africa,
the Zulu culture. This is what made this method unique, for
we saw a young professional cast. We saw a Broadway
A fr ica n h fe a n d m ovemen t has a rhythm of Hi Own (Ng ema viij
musical played by kids, who, even though they were young,
In 1 985 Committed Artists launched their first produc-
were highly professional. You see, it's not so much the story but
tion, Asinamali! (We have no money!), in a cinema in Soweto
how its done!' (Berman 32).
then moved i t downtown to the Market Theatre before embarki ng on very succe ssful nati o n a l a n d inter nati o n al lour \ As inamali! had the same kind of intense energy that distinguished Woza Albert!, butit made much greater use of song, d ance and tightly organised ensemble work. It also dealt in an unusual manner with the tragic lives of five men impr isoned after the assassination of a pr om i ne n t str i ke leader. Peter Brook saw the production in Harlem and was struck by its dynamism, noting that If you approach a situation like the South African one naturalistically, you can't present terrible events Me these inany other than a tragic, sentimental way. The events in their very nature are tragic or sentimentality-producing events. But what
It could be said that at that point in his career, Ngema seemed to be doing everything nghi He was offered recording contracts, an Academy-Award winning director made a fulllength documentary about Sarafina!, and then came the Hollywoodversion of the musical with megastar Whoopi Goldberg m a leading role. This feature film, shot in the environs of Soweto, employed about 100 actors and up to 5000 extras (Makgabutlane 1