The UCT Drama Department is revisiting the works of Barney Simon, playwright, director, dramaturge and student of human nature in South Africa at the height of apartheid, writes Theresa Smith
“Do you want music playing?” Jacqui Singer asks as she reaches for her cellphone.
She switches it on and Jamie-Lee Money and Matthew Kriel start talking louder as they try to be heard over the sudden noise.
“Okay, you have to switch it off,” she says to Money, who walks over to an imaginary stereo system to press an imaginary switch.
Clyde Berning (the only professional in the forthcoming productions) comes in to show off his costume, commenting on how it makes him feel like an accountant, and then Singer comes back to the rehearsal.
She explains to the two students what their characters’ motivations are and they discuss how comments should be attributed. The two are part of the nine-person ensemble for Cincinnati, a play written by Barney Simon and first performed in 1979.
The UCT Drama Department are putting on a retrospective of Simon’s work to mark 20 years since the director, playwright and dramaturge’s death and earlier Singer explained how they chose the works. In addition to Cincinnati, they will also present Woza Albert, directed by Mdu Kweyama, Begeerte, directed by Amy Jephta, Black Dog/ Inj’Emnyama, directed by Clare Stopford, and Have you seen Zandile?, directed by Ntombi Makhutshi. The last one was written by Gcina Mhlophe who was mentored by Simon.
Singer says they chose the works because they were looking for what would benefit the students most.
Singer has spent time explaining to students what it was like living and working in South African in the ’70s and ’80s, especially concepts like the Immorality Act and the restrictions on movement and association, which many of them are “quite ignorant” of.
Cincinatti was a real club, close to what is now The Market Theatre, and the play was devised by Simon (the theatre’s first artistic director) and his cast: “In true Barney style they were told to go and observe real people,” she said.
So, the characters are partly fictionalised, partly real and partly based on the original actors. Singer has consciously had to stop herself from telling the students to act in specific ways, since she saw the original first performed in Joburg, and knew the actors who first devised the play.
She asked four of those actors, who now live in Cape Town, to come and talk to the students, which was useful to put them into the picture about what those times were like.
Still, part of this exercise is also for the third- and fourth-year students to learn how to form onstage characters so she is forcing herself not to concentrate on the old version in her head, but allow them to re-interpret it.
Having worked with Simon herself, Singer can attest to the playwright being someone who “wrote for the actor”: “That comes through in the text.Workshop theatre, that was something he loved. He would take people’s stories and rework them.” She describes him as a person others either loved to work for, or not: “He loved to hear people’s stories. He had a great sense of humour and was very interested in the dislocated person living in the underbelly of the city. He would use the fragility and vulnerability in the person to create the character.”
He would also push people quite hard: “He would always say: ‘More, I want more’.”
She remembers rehearsing for a performance of Woyzeck opposite Marius Weyers and getting such a fright when the actor lunged at her with a knife, that she hugged him.
“He loved that, he said that’s how we should do it.”
Singer pointed out that though many of her current students would often write essays on Simon, they had to really sniff out their references as The World in an Orange: Creating Theatre with Barney Simon is one of the few books that explains who the playwright was, albeit from the perspective of people who worked with him. “He was all about being in the moment, taking risks and allowing yourself to fail. He didn’t give out a lot of himself,” she said.
Still, his effect on our theatre is huge and his legacy will be discussed in a keynote address by Mannie Manim at a symposium at the Hiddingh Campus on May 16.
“We have to revisit the struggle plays. We have to know where we come from and as a people who study theatre, we have to know our history,” said Singer.
In addition to these five plays by the UCT Drama School, the Baxter Theatre will present Born in the RSA in July after it premieres on the main programme at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in July.
Thoko Ntshinga, who performed the role of Thenjiwe in the original production, will direct the revival. Born in the RSA, once described as a living newspaper, connects monologues and stories in a drama that brings to life everyday South Africa and its people during the State of Emergency at the height of apartheid. A post-performance discussion with the director and cast will take place after the 6pm performance on July 2.
On the fringe programme, Peter Mitchell will direct TQ Zondi and Mpilo Nzimande in a production of Woza Albert at The Hexagon Theatre. Check the National Arts Festival programme on www.nationalartsfestival.co.za.