WOZA ALBERT. Written by Percy Mtwa, Mbongeni Ngema and Barney Simon. Directed by Mdu Kweyana with Sizwesandile Mnisi and Oarabile Ditsele. At The Baxter Theatre until April 9. TRACEY SAUNDERS reviews
THE year 1981 saw the birth of two satirical works which have stood the test of time and continue to provide a lens through which both pre and post Apartheid SA can be viewed. Pieter Dirk Uys’s Adapt or Dye, which drew it’s title from P W Botha’s speech to the House of Assembly in which he announced that white SA would have to “adapt or die”, and Woza Albert which called on the spirit of Albert Luthuli to rise.
Mtwa and Ngema may be both heartened and disillusioned by the resonance of the piece 33years later. In his acceptance speech on March 20 at the Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards, John Kani, who was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement award spoke about the importance of staging local theatre classics.
They serve as a reminder of our past and the role that theatre played in the struggle against apartheid. Woza Albert is undoubtedly one of the classics of the SA canon. This production in 2016 feels particularly timely given the current political climate and Kweyana, the 2016 Fleur du Cap winner of the Rosalie van der Gucht Prize for New Directors, has directed it with a keen appreciation of it’s contemporary currency.
Mnisi and Ditsele performed the piece in 2015 as part of UCT’s retrospective season of Barney Simon’s work which included Black Dog-Inj’emnyama! and Cincinnati. Mnisi and Ditsele are nothing short of magnificent in the many roles they perform. Preposterous police officers, poetic prisoners, delusional beggars, sexist coal carriers, pompous politicians and Morena himself to name but a few. Each character exhibits unique characteristics which are distinct from the changes wrought by costume changes and the alacrity with which they transform is no mean theatrical feat. The extensive use of physical theatre in the original was noteworthy as it wasn’t a form that was particularly common on SA stages. These actors employ every fibre of their anatomy and while the props and staging are minimal their sheer physicality provides a vast wardrobe of possibility.
Kweyana’s particular directorial sensibility seems to wring every nuance out of each physical movement, from unbridled mirth to heart wrenching anguish. Ditsele’s portrayal of an elderly woman is worth the ticket price. He employs every facial muscle in contortions that are matched only by Mnisi’s PW Botha. Grotowski, the Polish director who is considered one of the founders of the contemporary experimental theatre movement said that theatre “provides an opportunity for what could be called integration, the discarding of masks, the revealing of the real substance: a totality of physical and mental reactions.”
As each character appears the real substance of apartheid is revealed; the diminishing of humanity, the devaluing of worth, the subtle and overt ways of consigning people to a category of “other” is performed with a visceral honesty that leaves one feeling quite bereft. Director James Roose-Evans spoke of a theatrical process where actors are asked to “confront these characters within himself and offer the result of that encounter to an audience.” This cast do just that as they share something which seems more personal than theatrical.
In the opening sequence Mnisi is the quintessential apartheid police officer demanding that Ditsele presents his passbook. At face value the encounter may seem humorous but there is nothing funny about the dehumanizing aspect of the exchange. Reference is made to many other pieces of legislation.
This is not merely a theatrical performance but an historical documentary of the many aspects of apartheid. It is during the third scene, as prisoners in Modder B prison that the possibility of Morena’s appearance is mooted.
One of the most harrowing scenes is that of the two men waiting in Albert Road for casual employment. Today, alongside main roads and highways in every city the same scene is replicated day after day. Black men waiting on the side of the road for the opportunity to be employed for a few hours or perhaps a day. Ditsele’s lament, “You wait and wait and wait and wait again for the white bosses to come in their cars to give you work” is tragically as true in 2016 as it was in 1981.
Perhaps the exhortation for Albert to rise is as applicable to the men on Albert road as it is to Albert Luthuli himself. There are obvious parallels between the discrimination and dire conditions experienced then and those that continue today and Kweyana has allowed these to speak for themselves rather than contemporarise them. He breaks with this convention when Morena asks about Cecil John Rhodes when he is raising historical figures from their graves. The negative response to his query drew peals of laughter from the audience.
When the original production was staged the possibility of a democratic South Africa was a distant dream. In today’s democracy economic freedom and true equality seem as distant.
In the closing moments as Morena commands the stalwarts of South Africa’s political struggle to rise I was left with an anguish ameliorated by the presence in the audience and on the stage of the young leaders who have shown in recent months that they still embody the spirit of Albert Luthuli, Lillian Ngoyi and Chris Hani, even though so many of our present leaders don’t.
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