IN recent years, performance poetry has had a substantial effect on the youth in terms of self-expression and a change in the manner in which they carry it out. One festival that understands the need to nurture, grow and support professional poets in South Africa is the Current State of Poetry (CSP) Theatre Festival which aims to develop a stable and sustainable poetry industry.
The event features eight of some of the most prominent poets in KZN over a four-day period with four poetry-in-performance two-handers. The plays are directed by Thuli Zuma, Xolilie Vilakazi, Ndudu Mthombeni and Sqwayi Khumalo.
Running from Thursday to Sunday at the Playhouse Company, the fest also strives to broaden the poetry market from sessions to theatre and develop a youth culture audience.
Tonight chatted to directors Vilakazi, Mthombeni and Khumalo about their plays and the strong message they carry.
The Blood Line, directed by Khumalo, centres on themes of love, fear, betrayal and belief: He shares: “We are very fortunate to have been born and raised in townships. This is because each and every day as one walks the street, one is surely going to see or hear of an incident that happened and that incident will always give you a concept for a great performance play. So the concept of this play comes from a true township story.
“It is a reflection of the different communities we live in, and what I found interesting about this play was the topic it touched on, which is normally not publicly discussed, and I saw it as a challenge to direct a play of such magnitude, a play that has the possibility to touch, heal, and provoke emotion from diverse people.”
A play titled Uthingo (Shades of Light) will also be staged at the fest. Directed by Mthombeni, it is a two-hander, hour-long theatre piece, written and performed by Sthembile Gwala and Phiwokuhle Nyambose. With the overall theme being love, the director says: “The stories touch on feelings of longing to be in love, having been in love but now having to let go and making peace with that, finding it hard to let go, being in love and loving the experience.”
With many female artists featuring in poetry performances over the years, I ask Mthombeni what her views are on female rappers in South Africa. “I am all for creativity. There is nothing as beautiful as a creative mind. Women should not at any point think that they’re less capable of exploring and expressing themselves through words and sounds.
“We need to take up more courage of getting into these platforms where we would be able to live through our thoughts. There is so much to be expressed in life, both on the negative and the positive. It’s not even a question or an issue of gender. We are human beings. We are thinkers, creative, and we are searchers and finders of meanings. Let’s just do that,” she adds.
As for director Vilakazi’s play, Isigcawu Aamaphutha Nkululeko (A Chapter for all the Mistakes Freedom Brought About), it is performed by Durban poets, Sphiwe and Nhlanhla. “It touches on the challenges that young men were faced with when they were forced to go to exile. How their loved ones were affected and how their dreams were shattered.
“It also touches on how the freedom we have today is being misused. It’s not what it was supposed to be. The poets play characters of two forgotten heroes of the struggle and poetically they tell us what they went through. Add all the emotions in their poems – the anger, their happiness – and it draws one big picture which is the fact that South Africans have different views and feelings about the so-called freedom.”
Shedding light on the increase of poetry among the younger generation, Mthombeni says we are coming from different eras that have seen us experiencing different living conditions: “Each generation has had words being born at a particular time to express that which has been relevant at that time. The change in poetry is brought about by the changes occurring in society, how people are experiencing life, what they are most conscious of at that time and what they are oblivious to. The increase, I believe, has been brought by the increasing available means of accessing information and getting in touch with how the world is, globally. The more we started seeing through different mediums that there are such ways of being creative, the more people fell in love and wanted to experiment with what they were seeing.”
l CSP Theatre Fest, Playhouse, Thurs until Sun. R120 at Computicket.