If the world is indeed a stage, then graffiti artist Mak1one has been painting his own backdrops for years. But he was recently given the chance to get involved with a professional production at the Baxter Theatre, David Kramer’s Some Like it Vrot.
In addition to Kramer giving young cast members a chance to sing on a professional stage for the first time, the backdrop for his musical production – a 12 metre long, 3 metre high representation of the show name, complete with a Cape Town cityscape – has also provided work for Mak1one.
Kramer says it was set designer Saul Radomsky’s choice to use graffiti: “He wanted to capture the feel of Cape Town’s streets.
“When I saw the model of the set… Saul is not a young graffiti artist, he’s a designer from London… his idea was right but the execution of graffiti needed someone like Mak1one, who knows what it would look like now.
“The set features what you will see when driving through Cape Town – the Vibracrete, the corrugated iron… you needed to decorate it in this way.”
And it’s certainly the kind of work Mak1one saw around the Cape Flats as a child in the 1980s.
As a young boy intrigued by the colours and designs, he’d copy into a book whatever he saw, until he got his first spray can of electric blue and drew a metre high spear-carrying Zulu skater on a wall in Beaconvale.
Initially graffiti was just something he did for himself, but after his friends and teachers saw his work he started doing it more often and one of his first theatre experiences was painting the back-drop for a West Side Story product-ion at Aloe High in Lentegeur.
After leaving high school and holding down a string of casual jobs, he eventually started using his graffiti skills alongside other artists, working on murals, painting during live performances and doing custom work for corporates.
Today the 36-year-old works with networking organisation Heal the Hood, presenting workshops on the art of graffiti and how it pertains to encouraging people to find what they love doing and keep doing it.
It was Heal the Hood that called him a few weeks ago and said a graffiti artist was needed “now” for a theatre job.
“I didn’t know where it was and then Alistair (Izobell) called and said ‘can you come through right now?’ “
So he went to Epping Fruit Market, chatted to Marc Lottering and was introduced to David Kramer and the rest of the cast.
“He (Kramer) explained what he wanted and it wasn’t that difficult,” said Mak1one. “It was very basic. Just the name – Some Like it Vrot – with a cityscape.
“I like working in theatre, I like the way the lights play on the colours,” he said.
“I worked with Saul, the set designer, a lot. It’s nice to be on the stage again, painting.”
Compared to Mak1one’s first metre-by-a-metre-and-a-half electric blue Zulu skater, the Some Like it Vrot job was so much bigger. And it was a paid job.
“I remember saying to myself ‘I want to be the best graffiti artist, not to beat someone else, but for me. I want to be really good at what I do and I just want to paint all the time’.
“I didn’t expect to make a living out of this,” he said.
l Some Like it Vrot is running at the Baxter until at least New Year’s Eve. Performances start at 8pm during the week and at 5pm and 8.30pm on Saturdays. Book at Computicket or call 083 915 8000. - The Argus