There is light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to transforming Hillbrow once again into a vibrant, culturally and artistically appealing place, says Edward Tsumele.
One shining example of transforming this suburb that was established in the late 1890s as an entry point for European migrants living in Joburg - with Greeks, Italians, French, Portuguese, Germans, Austrians finding homes in the high rise contemporary residential area, is Hillbrow Theatre.
Neglected for years and at some stage under threat of becoming, either derelict or being taken over by charismatic churches that are awash in the area, Hillbrow Theatre on Kapteijn Street, is now a shining beacon of what is possible when there is visionary and committed community leadership.
The venue is now a vibrant community theatre space that in the past three years has managed to turn itself into a venue that now has a solid audience, mainly inner school pupils. They are patrons of its popular Hillbrow Annual Schools Theatre festival.
One of its shows took part in the Grahamstown National Arts Festival last year. The theatre’s fortunes changed when theatre director Gerard Bester founded The Hillbrow Outreach Foundation, sourced funds from institutions such as the National Lotteries Board and others to renovate the place, put its programmes together and identified its target audience.
This week the venue hosted an award-winning play called Ulwembu from Durban.
The middle class audience that clearly was the kind that you would not ordinarily find in Hillbrow on a Wednesday night, was invited by award-winning writer and director Neil Coppen and educational sociologist Dr Dylan McGarry, in conjunction with SA Drug Policy.
By watching Ulwembu - a multi-award-winning groundbreaking, poignant, informative, honest and incisive theatre production about drug abuse and community transformation, the audience were given rare insights into issues confronting our society. This was unheard of only a few years ago.
Ulwembu’s genesis can be traced to 2014 when a dynamic team of story-tellers, playwrights, theatre-makers, academics and researchers set about exploring the increasing levels of Whoonga (low-grade heroin) use currently plaguing KwaZulu-Natal communities.
The result of that two-year research/play-making is Ulwenbu (isiZulu for a spiderweb).
Ulwembu, which has been described as "poignant" and "essential" viewing, affords local theatre audiences the opportunity to walk in the shoes of misunderstood others: be it people who use illicit drugs, dealers, police officers, social workers or families of people who use drugs.
Generally the attitudes we see towards drug use, are that it has a catastrophic effect on our communities, yet this research (alongside global research) shows that systemically it is the catastrophic state of our communities that are driving the use of Whoonga.
“Drug use is not the root problem, but the symptom and politically expedient and attractive target,” says Shaun Shelly, a research partner from UCT and the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Pretoria and TB/HIV Care.
Ulwembu reveals possible answers to some of the big questions we face around street level drug use in our country, through two years of in-depth research at multiple scales.
“With this production,” says Coppen, “we wanted to create an engrossing and visceral theatrical journey for audiences, allowing the power of the story and the characters escalating dilemmas, to reveal the many complexities and facets behind the crisis.”
The play was recently awarded best script, best director (Coppen), best lead actress (Mpume Mthombeni), best supporting actor(Phumlani Ngubane and best newcomer Ngcebo Cele) at the 2017 Durban Theatre Awards. The cast includes Mthombeni, Vumani Khumalo, Ngubane, Cele, Sandile Nxumalo and Zenzo Msomi.
Direction is by Coppen, design by Dylan McGarry, the script is co-written by the entire team.
This performance has been made possible through the generous support of the National Institute for Humanities and Social Science, Urban Futures Centre, Twist Theatre Development Project (Twist Durban), Think Theatre and the constant support of the Denis Hurley Centre and the Hillbrow Theatre (Outreach Foundation).
* The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.