This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

13th September 2008

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When characterising this country’s two major cities, most South Africans follow a handful of largely unchallenged assumptions: Johannesburg represents the new, the hyper-urban, the frenzy of commerce; Cape Town stands for “tradition” (or at least, established collective habits), for a laid-back approach to life, for natural beauty.

It’s intriguing, then, that new exhibitions at some of the major art galleries in these cities invert such associations. At Johannesburg’s Everard Read Gallery, British artist John Caple’s “To The Quiet Moon” both invokes and evokes a rural – one might even say “rustic” – idiom. On the other hand, there is “Print ’08: Myth, Memory and Archive” at the Bell-Roberts Gallery, which has relocated from the Cape Town city bowl to Fairweather House in the gritty suburb of Woodstock. Like “Monomania”, which was recently hosted by the Goodman Gallery Cape (neighbour to the Bell-Roberts), “Print ’08” is strongly tied to the material concerns of a modern metropolis.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

6th September 2008

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I first saw Africa Umoja – the Spirit of Togetherness back in 2002 when, as one of thousands of home-sick ‘Saffers’ living in London, I relished the taste of a production that seemed to be so quintessentially South African. Umoja offers audiences a whistle-stop tour from the days of the kraal (animal skins, beadwork and all) to the rhythms of kwaito, taking in a range of iconic sights and sounds along the way. There is the sangoma, the Venda snake dance and Zulu stick-fighting; there is the music that grew from early encounters between black migrant workers and the ‘white’ metropolis; there is jive, jazz, marabi, gumboot dancing, mbaqanga, gospel, the marimba and ikwassa kwassa. The scenes unfold in locales with resonant names – the Durban YMCA, Sophiatown, the mines, Soweto and the ubiquitous shebeen.

This article first appeared in THE MAIL & GUARDIAN

5th September 2008

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The Beijing Olympics may be over, but interest in China is unlikely to wane any time soon. In South Africa, one minor manifestation of this global trend is the development of a sub-sub-genre in local literature. Admittedly, two books do not a pattern make; but following Robert Berold’s Meanwhile Don’t Push and Squeeze, about a South African writer who goes to teach English in China, we now have Alex Smith’s Drinking from the Dragon’s Well, about – you guessed it – a South African writer who goes to teach English in China.

This article first appeared in THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

24th August 2008

If, like me, you barely know your pas de basque from your pas de cheval or your entrechats from your échappés sautés, a trip to the ballet can be a little intimidating. Will you notice the minute details of poise and movement that (to the better informed) so clearly elevate the principal dancers above the corps de ballet? Will you follow – and believe – the twists and turns of the storyline? Will you have the stamina to keep applauding through all those curtain calls?

Fortunately, however, the pageantry, spectacle and high drama of top-quality ballet can be enjoyed by cognoscenti and philistines alike; and this is precisely what the South African Ballet Theatre (SABT) provides in La Traviata – The Ballet, which runs at the Civic Theatre until 7th September.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

16th August 2008

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Back in the 1990s, when the world was young and the cast of Friends still had big hair, there was an episode of the hit sitcom in which Chandler explained that Michael Flatley “scares the bejesus out of him” because Flatley’s legs “flail about as if independent from his body!”

Admittedly, Friends is not the ultimate barometer of popular culture, but the allusion does indicate the impact that Flatley’s Lord of the Dance had when it first appeared on the international scene. Having debuted in Dublin in 1996, the show was a hit in the USA and rapidly became Irish dancing’s global flagship – superseding the Riverdance company that Flatley had helped to form but left after ‘creative disagreements’ with his co-creators.

This article first appeared in THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

Sunday 10th August 2008

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I’m running a few minutes late for my meeting with little-known South African theatre personality, Ron van Wuren – and with each passing minute, I know, the number of people milling around the theatre foyer-cum-coffee shop is growing. But I’m not worried. Although he’s shorter than most, Ron stands out in the crowd; and when I arrive, I recognise him straight away. It’s been about ten years since he made his first (and only) appearance on stage, but fortunately Ron bares a striking resemblance to a far more prominent figure of the local stage and screen: Rob van Vuuren.

For those who weren’t at last month’s National Arts Festival, this coincidence requires some explanation. Van Vuuren was involved in no fewer than 13 productions in Grahamstown, one of which was the intriguingly titled Rob van Vuuren is Ron van Wuren. Audiences who knew about the former flocked to find out about the latter – was he a new alter-ego, like Twakkie from cult slapstick phenomenon The Most Amazing Show?

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

Saturday 9th August 2008

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Herman Charles Bosman won’t go away. He may be less popular with certain politically correct educationists who can’t detect the irony in his use of the ‘k-word’, but he remains one of the greatest writers South Africa has produced.

Those who acknowledge his literary talent do so mostly by invoking his Groot Marico stories. Indeed, precisely because they were prescribed for so long on high school and university curricula – and because of Patrick Mynhardt’s vivid stage impersonation of Oom Schalk Lourens, the bumbling narrator of so many of those stories – the Bosman we have inherited is the Bosman of Mafeking Road and A Bekkersdal Marathon, of the ‘stoep’ and the ‘voorkamer’, of the pipe and the peach brandy.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

26th July 2008

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Ten Bush, a new play by Mcendisi Shabangu and Craig Higginson, opens with a nervous declaration from a clearly disturbed woman (Martha, played by Tinah Mnumzana): “Every day, I try not to look backwards ...”

The effect of obsessing about the past – whether trying to avoid it or remaining bound by it – is the central theme in this work. What does it mean to “look backwards”? In one sense, it seems to refer to the psychological enslavement brought about by superstitious fears. Martha is visited by the ghost of Chief Malaza who, according to a centuries-old legend, betrayed nine Swazi chiefs at war with the Sotho. The village of Tenbosch (in present-day Mpumalanga) was, according to this narrative, founded on their graves; and, consequently, the inhabitants of the fictionalised Ten Bush have been cursed in each ensuing generation.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

19th July 2008

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The dichotomy between page and stage may be a false one, but it is a common enough assumption (albeit unconscious) that the literary text implies a reader-writer dynamic, while the theatrical production depends on an actor-audience relationship, and never the twain shall meet.

The ancient Greeks – as with so many other things – had it right: they used the same word, poet, to describe Homer and Euripides, Orpheus and Aeschylus. Of course, the irony here is that legendary or mythical figures like Homer and Orpheus were poets in the oral tradition, while playwrights like Euripides and Aeschylus committed their dramatic creations to paper (many of which were lost in the fires that destroyed the great library of Alexandria).

This article first appeared in THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

6th July 2008

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Very few people who attend the annual National Arts Festival in Grahamstown know that this country’s flagship cultural event has its roots in a comparatively modest festival of Shakespeare productions and lectures held in 1974, linked to a conference on “English-speaking South Africa” and not as far removed as the organisers had perhaps hoped from the jingoism and colonial cringing that was still strongly associated with ‘Englishness’ south of the Limpopo at that time.

Shakespearean criticism and performance has changed a lot since then, and over three decades there have been hundreds of different manifestations of Shakespeare’s plays at the Festival. 2008 is the first year that there is no ‘straight’ Shakespeare performance on in Grahamstown; but there are nevertheless three adaptations that offer rich pickings for bardolators and bardophobes alike.

This article first appeared in THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

6th July 2008

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There are struggle heroes, and then there are struggle heroes.

Martin Koboekae’s Biko: Where the Soul Resides has opened at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, eliciting a mixed response to its attempts “to show the man behind the icon”. Also debuting at the Festival is Nadia Davids’ new play, Cissie, which offers an intimate biography of one of this country’s more enigmatic political figures. Whereas Biko is internationally renowned, Cissie Gool – though she campaigned tirelessly against the racist laws of the Union government and subsequently against the apartheid state – remains unknown to most South Africans outside of the Western Cape. She was quintessentially a Capetonian, born and bred there by her Scottish mother and Indian-Malay father, and it was for the rights of the disenfranchised people of Cape Town (most famously for the people of District Six) that she fought throughout her life. 

This article first appeared in THE WEEKDENDER

5th July 2008

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The Graham Protea Hotel in Grahamstown’s High Street is a nice enough place to stay, I’ve been told; but when you’re going there to watch a show at the National Arts Festival, you don’t consider that – you simply pass through the bustle of the foyer into the perpetual twilight of the function room. It’s a potentially gloomy spot, with a makeshift stage and rows of temporary chairs on the dull carpet. When the lights go down, however, and some of South Africa’s finest musical talents (from veterans such as Tony Cox to relative unknowns like Fly Paper Jet) take the stage, it is transformed into a magical space.

This metamorphosis was more pronounced than usual when Amanda Strydom brought her “Soul Songs” to the 2008 Festival.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

5th July 2008

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As a general rule, I don’t like standing ovations. They’re usually manifestations of a herd mentality rather than considered expressions of the highest acclaim for a performing artist.

Over the last few days, however, I’ve found myself joining the ranks of those who rise to their feet in enthusiastic tribute. Of the first ten shows that I watched at this year’s National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, at least half received standing ovations – and thoroughly merited them. Most of the rest were equally good. Indeed, it was only towards the end of my third day at the Festival that I saw my first mediocre piece of theatre (one that shall remain unidentified). This was almost a relief; every Festino worth his or her salt needs to be able to disrecommend at least one show when schmoozing with the bohemian see-and-be-seen crowds at drinking holes in the early hours of the morning. Bad-mouthing certain productions is a Grahamstown tradition.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

21st June 2008

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“Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence...”

You would imagine that the Desiderata has little in common with a theatre phenomenon variously described by critics in Europe, America and Australasia as “dazzling”, “a spectacle” and even “a gigglefest”. What, after all, could Max Ehrmann’s austere spiritual poem have to do with a group of actors, dancers and clowns that have (in various forms) been performing together for over three decades – including an unbroken three-year stint on Broadway?

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

14th June 2008

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About a year ago, in one of the cavernous Grahamstown school halls used as theatre venues at the National Arts Festival, I discovered Jacques Brel. Of course, I’d heard of Brel before, and knew some of the popular versions of his songs: “If We Only Have Love”, “Jackie”, or the more saccharine renditions of “Seasons in the Sun”. But it was only when I attended a performance of Kissed by Brel, watching and listening in awe as Claire Watling (accompanied on the piano by Godfrey Johnson) brought Brel’s lyrics and melodies to life, that I realised quite how remarkable a poet and musician he was.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

7th June 2008

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When Counting Crows first toured South Africa in August 1999, they played to a packed house at the Sun City Superbowl. The Springboks had just lost to the All Blacks and frontman Adam Duritz commiserated with the crowd, but when a few patriotic fans started waving South African flags, Adam’s response was curt: “Hey man, this is rock’n’roll, put those f***ing flags away!”

Since then, I’ve been wanting to ask the Crows about the link between music and politics – especially at a time when, from global warming to third world debt, it’s pretty sexy for rock stars to wear their political colours on their sleeves. After all, the band has demonstrated an ongoing social commitment through its Greybird Foundation, which raises money for needy causes, and they are actively encouraging Americans to vote in the upcoming presidential elections. But there’s little overtly ‘political’ content in their music.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

7th June 2008

What does it mean to be ‘coloured’? The narrator of Njabulo Ndebele’s novella Fools describes “the tragic illusion of people conditioned to draw their greatest inspiration from the little white blood in them ... living in the perpetual uncertainty of not knowing whether they are loved or hated.” Guy Butler, one of many white writers who have presumed to write about coloured experience, noted that “the contemplation of this most unethnic of South Africa’s ethnic groups has, from the beginning, evoked a mixed response: mingled affection and contempt, liking and loathing” and, elsewhere, wrote sardonically about “the great disgrace” of “a touch of the tarbrush” in one’s face.

This article first appeared in THE MAIL & GUARDIAN

6th to 12th June 2008

There will be those who delight in the obvious joke about this book: that a work titled For the Sake of Silence (one in which, moreover, the narrator frequently meditates on the undesirability of words) extends to some 550 pages. Yet such a glib response to the length of what will no doubt prove to be Michael Green’s magnum opus is inappropriate on at least two counts.

The first is that Green’s subject – the life and times of Franz Pfanner, Trappist monk and unlikely but highly successful missionary – is the stuff of epic, and merits the thorough and detailed chronicle he offers. Pfanner’s star burned brightly in Catholic Europe and Southern Africa during the second half of the nineteenth century, both reinvigorating and undermining the centuries-old monastic order of which he became one of the most famous, if also one of the most controversial, members.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

24th May 2008

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Jean Jansem’s Expressioniste Humaniste opened last week at Johannesburg’s Everard Read gallery amidst a flurry of air kisses and idle chit-chat. The city’s well-to-do denizens flocked to see and be seen at an exhibition by this internationally prized French artist: investors aiming to use those all-important little red dots to secure artworks selling into the millions, socialites enjoying the chance to network or gossip over a glass of red wine.

If this reviewer was more aware than usual of an atmosphere of frivolity and pretension, it is because Jansem’s work is anything but frivolous or pretentious. Indeed, most of the pieces on display in this exhibition are portraits of forlorn and morose-looking women. When their faces are visible, their eyes express regret or anxiety; when their backs are turned, their exposed skin and closed posture make them seem vulnerable.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

24th May 2008

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The Johannesburg City Hall is one of those architectural gems largely unknown to most residents of the conurbation that is greater Joburg. Built in 1915, it has survived – like a handful of other fine buildings in ‘the dodgy part of town’ – our local developers’ obsession with demolishing any building over half a century old. (This is, by the way, a well-established habit; in an essay titled “Old Joburg is Vanishing” that is itself more venerable than most of the buildings in ‘new Joburg’, Herman Charles Bosman wrote: “I sorrow for the buildings and the people who have gone. People and things that have vanished like hopes. All gone into the unremembering dust ...”)