This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

20th October 2007

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“Two world premieres. Two popular classics. Two groundbreaking versions. One company.” Thus declares the programme for the Isango/Portobello double-bill of A Christmas Carol / IKrismas Kherol and The Magic Flute / Impempe Yomlingo. Well, they are world premieres (the shows travel to the Young Vic in London in November); they are classics, and popular in the full sense of that word – “for the people”; they are, despite certain flaws, truly groundbreaking productions; and, impressively, they are being staged by one cast, one director, one writing team and one crew.

One set serves both the Carol and the Flute: a steeply raked bare stage, flanked by two storeys of scaffolding. This not only locates each work in a gritty South African society that is “under construction”, but also emphasises that the productions themselves are “rough around the edges”, making innovative use of everyday items in a way that is characteristic of our country’s poverty-stricken urban spaces.

This is not to say that either show is low-budget or “low-tech”. In the Flute, flames and lights shoot through trapdoors. In the Carol, there is a lengthy video projection as the Ghost of Christmas Past depicts Scrooge’s youth on TV. But these features are combined with invigorating elements of “poor man’s theatre”. For example, the cast makes its own sound effects: in the Flute, the notes of Papageno’s magic bells are played on glass Coke bottles, while the Carol reproduces the cacophonous noise of a gold mine with barrels, chains and poles.

The transposition of Dickens’ tale onto the Egoli reef gives some substance to the often-trite word “universal”, demonstrating that Victorian England is closer to South Africa circa 2007 than we might like to think. Pauline Malefane plays Nozizwe Scrooge, a girl from the townships who has become a mining magnate; poster-woman for BEE though she may be, she is callously indifferent to the plight of her employees and their families.

When we see Scrooge’s history – orphaned at a young age, with a sister who turned to prostitution to pay for food – it makes sense that, like so many of South Africa’s “black diamonds”, she wants to forget all about that world. She ignores not only her political and economic background, but her cultural inheritance too. When warned about the visitation of the ghosts, she is adamant: “I don’t believe in your tribal nonsense ... traditional shit!” The Christmas Carol, of course, proves her wrong. Dickens’ words float in and out of the play, merging with isiXhosa and other South African expressions.

Adapting Mozart’s Magic Flute for South African audiences is slightly trickier. For the Isango/Portobello company, the challenge is made even greater by the fact that this production has opened just as the local run of William Kentridge’s internationally acclaimed version comes to an end. The two Flutes are altogether different in conception and execution, but a few comparisons can nevertheless be made.

First there is the opera form itself. Although Mozart felt that he was writing “music for the masses”, opera was subsequently hijacked by the moneyed few and is, typically, viewed as elitist. I touched on this point in a conversation with David Lan, the South African-born artistic director at the Young Vic, who has been closely involved with the Carol and the Flute and will oversee the shows when they are in London. According to Lan, the stigma remains, even in the UK: “Certain art forms are thought to be the terrain of small social groups. The whole process of living in a society is unfortunately based on making distinctions, and this also applies to perceptions about who is entertained by what; but we want to suggest that it needn’t be so, and are following an imperative to make a deep and complex artistic experience available to all.”

The Kentridge production tried in its own way to do the same in South Africa by offering free performances to underprivileged schoolchildren; but exorbitant ticket prices for the main shows meant that audiences remained mostly pale and bourgeois. (The Baxter, attempting to rectify this problem, has been selling tickets for the Carol and the Flute for R40 at shops in Khayelitsha). Moreover, it could be argued, because elitism in this country has specific racial, cultural and linguistic connotations, to make opera truly accessible requires a thorough revision of language, musical style, costuming and setting. Director Mark Dornford-May has already achieved this with U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, and his Magic Flute is an attempt to repeat that success.

There is a further potential barrier to the positive reception of Mozart’s opera in South Africa, however, because in one sense it is not suited to a post-colonial or post-patriarchal environment. The Flute’s celebration of “lightness” (truth and reason) as opposed to “darkness” (evil and disorder) could be situated within a broader context: long-established and unflattering comparisons between “rational” Europe and “irrational” Africa that were used to justify the ills of colonialism under the banner of “civilisation”. There are also associations of men with “virtue” and women with “corruption”.

But the libretto is ambiguous when it comes to who is on the side of “enlightenment”, there is a kind of social levelling during the course of the story, and the broad themes of forgiveness and reconciliation are most apposite in South Africa. The Isango/Portobello creative team have taken these connections as a basis for “Africanising” the Flute. Instead of a gathering in the Masonic temple of Lord Sarastro, we have “comrades” meeting for a lekgotla, sitting on beer crates, discussing Tamino’s “initiation”.

Other easily recognisable cultural forms make their way onstage, often with light-hearted touches – such as when operatic arias blend seamlessly with the soul sounds of shoo-wop girls in “retro” costumes. Ultimately, it is this sort of fusion that marks the production as unique, and here Mandisi Dyantyis’ musical team deserves special recognition. This Flute has no orchestra, but Dyantyis has adapted the score for marimbas and choral accompaniment, which he conducts with aplomb in between stints playing the “magic trumpet” himself. Mozart’s score was also transcribed into tonic sol-fa for company members who cannot read music but have been trained in choirs; in turn, it is this training that stands them in good stead when a capella (unaccompanied) renditions of complicated vocal combinations are required.

The details behind the production’s music reveal much about the workings of the Isango/Portobello company – just as both Flute and Carol reflect the risks and rewards of the entire enterprise. There are isolated moments where the shows are less than “professional”; but the abiding impression of any audience member is likely to be that they haven’t seen anything like this on the South African (or British) stage before.

 To read more about these productions, click here.