Johannesburg - The Market Theatre turns 40 this year and a treasure trove of productions has been lined up to surprise and excite. There will be a link-up with Black History Month, questioning and celebrating the black experience, with play readings in public spaces, apprenticeships and mentoring programmes for young playwrights and directors – the full gamut of theatre programming.
The chief executive is on her way out. Whatever the reasons, executive posts are known to be toxic. And theatres, like big corporations, are bipolar environments. You become alienated very fast.
The instinct to achieve the bottom line by any means is powerful with the board of directors. Soweto Theatre and the freshly extinct Windybrow are instructive about the psychological abuses and the demand for the impossible. At the top it’s a habit-forming ecstasy of obedience, and subservience is a word not openly used. When you are done, you merely shake your wise head and pack your bags.
Programming is up and running again at the Market, thanks to funding and politicking. A new building is up across the street to cure the problem of artistic exclusion that ails the industry. Young bucks who craft their thoughts have a new platform to look to.
The linking of content in and across the continent is happening fast. Classics such as Amen Corner by James Baldwin, Es’kia Mphahlele’s The Suitcase, and Underground Railroad have been instructive with regard to this year’s theme and the programme’s content and magnitude.
The programme includes such productions as A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, Tobacco and the Harmful Effects Thereof by William Harding and Sylvaine Strike, International Jazz Day curated by Brenda Sisane, The Year of the Bicycle by Joanna Evans, and Suddenly Namhlanje by Paul Slabolepszy. The Market seems to have regained its original sense of good news.
Last year was a terrible low, with the Market having almost nothing to show. It was slowly becoming the unavowed cousin of Mmabana in Mahikeng and Pacofs in Bloemfontein – with staff checking in to put on the lights, play computer games and draw salaries.
With the dearth of shows, James Ngcobo, the artistic director, was said to be flouting the core values of serious historical practice. His answer was that his hands were tied. A few mutters in the industry chalked this down to an example of productive inefficiency.
“We started the year dark,” Ngcobo says, during a break in a rehearsal for A Raisin in the Sun, which he is directing and which is one of the shows that is to launch the season at the Market Theatre.
“It was a difficult time and a turbulent time. There was a lack of clarity around funding,” Ngcobo says.
“In hindsight this was an eye-opener, although it was a major knocker.”
Ngcobo has a sweet demeanour, and the sort of personality who punishes himself.
But personality is personality. It does not solve funding issues or bring in audiences or break even.
Ngcobo is under pressure to succeed as artistic director of a premium theatre house. In this position he is supposed to be like a young adult who can’t put a smartphone down as they continually need the stimulus. In Ngcobo’s case this means always looking for stories that sell shows.
“It’s not easy to be an artistic director. And it’s like that all over the world,” he says.
“You can’t make everyone happy. The animosity will always be there. One thing I cannot compromise on is getting shows that are believable.
“It is not a secret that we need the best playwrights, the best actors and best directors. We need stories that matter. We can’t be comfortable with what we have. We need to challenge ourselves. And we have to maintain the standards.
“I know people would say, ‘By whose standards?’ And my answer is the standard of this theatre. We need content that will engage the audience. I don’t want caricatured performances.”
In his two years as artistic director at the Market Theatre, Ngcobo has directed 11 pieces. He is seasoned and can turn his hand to many things. What is important is that he sees stories in layers of colour. He is not restricted to a visual half-field. He has no fixation.
A Raisin in the Sun comes at a time when the madness of racial wars is gaining popularity. It is well suited to South African audiences because of the similarities in its narrative theme. It deals with the deep psychic wounds of being black in a white world, and tells the story of a lower-class black family’s struggle to gain middle-class acceptance. The play was made into a film in 1961 by Daniel Petrie and a television film in 2008 by Kenny Leon.
The cast includes Charlie Biugenon, Gaosi Raditholo, Hungani Ndlovu, Khatu Ramabulana, Khulu Skenjana, Lebo Toko, Lesedi Job, Phaka Zwedala and Trena Bolden Fields.
Ngcobo wants the Market Theatre to be at the top.
“I’m looking for great stories and we should not be afraid to try new things,” he says.
During a rehearsal, he is an actor and director all at once. He is fast. Talk is rapid. The energy changes when he enters the room. It becomes comical, jovial and friendly.
“Give me that nice volume,” he says to an actor.
He runs from one side of the stage to the other. He runs up the stairs, listens for a while, and comes scooting down with a triumphant “Yes!!”
“It works – ta-ta-ta. You must have the readiness to come back.”
It may not make sense reading this, but that’s how creatives work. They speak in tongues when they are excited.
“I don’t want the audience to see the stereotype of an angry black man,” he tells Phaka Zwedala, who plays Walter.
“I want them to see a castrated man. Okay, let’s do it again.”
After the rehearsal he tells me he likes working with actors and understands them because he too is an actor.
“I like to work in a tantrum-free environment,” he says.
“I want to be there with actors. I don’t want to sit back and spit out the big words or shout down people like so many directors I have seen.
“The environment must be free so you can get the best out of them. I don’t want people to come and watch this show. I want them to listen. It is only when the environment is right that you can achieve this.”
Ngcobo is a man in love with the heavy political and literary themes. He has produced Baldwin’s Amen Corner, The Coloured Museum and Tribute to Maya Angelou and thinks it’s about time that the Market did important shows.
“The Market Theatre has to orbit. We cannot make theatre for the same audience. We can’t stick to the same things again. We need linkages. And I need to have that humility not to do things that are my taste only.
“I want collaborations, because after all theatre is about collaborations. We need to take theatre everywhere. In the dark days, Gibson Kente took theatre to the world. Why can’t we?”
I mention that A Raisin in the Sun seems to be “up to his taste”.
“Yes it is,” he says. “I’m a big memory person. I’ve always wanted to direct this. The show is pure realism. I wanted to create the motifs that are not there.
“I could easily have adapted it, but I thought I should leave it as is. It’s done by South Africans with just one American and the passion is to master every word in it, accent and all.”
Ngcobo gives a clue to the kind of shows he would love to see at the Market.
“We haven’t staged a ‘white’ Fugard, for example. We have done black productions. I like the Fugards that… are gathering dust. I want to clean them up and bring them on stage, such as People Are Living There. We need to bring in stories of Hugh Masekela that are not in his book. I have read Still Grazing, but every time I’m with him I learn something new.”
What about the audience?
“I love the idea of the old constituencies coming to the Market. We need that. An audience is like a girl. You have to court her again and again.”
If Ngcobo’s themes are well received and are bringing in money, it will be a long-deserved nod for him when he leaves at the end of his term in 2018 to pursue other ambitions. It’s clear Ngcobo has a restless mind. He wants to do everything. He pursues big themes because, as he says, he is a big memory person.
* A Raisin in the Sun opens on Friday, February 5 and runs until February 28 in the John Kani Theatre. It is being presented in association with the US embassy.
The Sunday Independent