Latoya Newman
Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing gets a contemporary African twist when it stages at the Durban University of Technology (DUT)’s Courtyard Theatre this week, before heading off to Germany.
In an interview with Tonight, designer and director, Professor Debbie Lutge, explained that this is part of a global exchange and research programme to honour the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.
“The Folkwang Shakespeare Festival is a special festival as it features only invited global directors. All participants direct the same Shakespearean production as individual directors and then redirect collaboratively with all the global partners and casts. The festival is only held every two years and the Folkwang Shakespeare Festival 2016 is the eighth festival, with all shows mounted in Essen-Werden, Germany, at the Folkwang Universität der Künste.
“The DUT is honoured that we are among the selected few to participate, particularly as this year pays tribute as a 400-year commemoration since Shakespeare’s death. We are the first to represent Africa on so auspicious an occasion and are doubly honoured for the acknowledgement this brings to our institution and continent.”
Commenting on their interpretation of the play, she said: “The conceptual design and interpretation of Much Ado About Nothing rests firmly in the notion that ‘I am an African’. We all form part of an African diaspora dislodged in part by our colonial history, entrenched in roots of varying degrees of traditionalism, negotiating global media and digital modernisation, in a delicate democracy essentially clinging hopefully to ubuntu-invested values. Hence the work evolved to own the Shakespearean text in our own African manner. This is what I enjoy most about directing: stretching artistic boundaries and flexing society through confronting in ourselves the unexpected choices, the renegotiated presence, the reaffirmation of our humanity, our conscience, our dignity.”
She added that reinterpreting the shifts in flow, meter, rhythm in a linguistic text with contemporary signifiers that live, means expressing these elements diversely: “In drums that signify the seat of things; in a quasi-Ndebele cardboard box set and floor design that demarcates the central acting space of the Acts and scenes; in the slow motion storytelling of the background that moves in another time dimension, in the contemporary costume design reflecting African beads and fluorescent incantations; in returning soldiers in gumboots who dance their march through time, in the collaborative power and the fusion of traditional and new African-inspired songs (with harmonies perfected by Richardt Wissink and Senzo Mabanga).”
She added that Shakespeare wrote for his contemporary audiences and that they perform for theirs, so the inclusion of Zulu was a natural transition. “Predominantly the text is in English with a few translated words or phrases to assist us to own Shakespeare in our own way, yet allow the transcribed Shakespeare to be accessible to all here at home, as well as across the continent, and abroad. Tackling the language meant unpacking meaning and finding signifying points of cultural reference. We have added two imbongi Zulu orators… we opted for a predominantly English-based text infused with African costumes and contexts.”
Lutge said the context marries multiple cultural stimuli and represents a modern South Africa inscribed with merged intra-cultural influences negotiating unique social environments and circumstances driven by progress, economics and global interaction.
Much Ado About Nothing, until Friday at the Courtyard Theatre at 7pm nightly. R40 adults, R20 students, groups larger than 10, R10. Info: 031 373 2194.