Pretoria - A loud and vibrant throwback to the 1960s in a shebeen in Sophiatown, peppered by drama, romance, comedy, and the music and dance – complete with the dress code of the era – is what a full crowd was treated to at the State Theatre on Sunday afternoon.
Sophiatown: A Play, took an audience of people from across the province, most who are lovers of the arts and of stage acting, back into that time of apartheid when people were living a drama-filled life on the peripheries of the city centre, with the threat of being moved from their homes and into the unknown of Meadowlands.
The stage was ever-changing to accommodate the different aspects of the days before the evictions in a tavern run by Mamariti and featuring colourful characters ranging from the shebeen queen, a journalist named Jakes and his siblings Mingus, the gangster and sister, 16-year-old Lulu, to Fafhee, the regular visitor who relies on numbers to predict and interpret the goings-on of the day.
Mingus has a coloured hanger-on named Charlie at his beck and call, a girlfriend, Princess, who lives under constant threat of abuse and is a reminder that he took her out of the gutter to live a spoilt life. In the mix arrives Ruth Golden, a Jewish girl from Yeoville, who responds to an advert in Drum, written by Jakes, and who is also confused by her own identity and wants to see how the other side lives.
The play brings to life what Sophiatown was; a lively, loud, music and dance-driven freehold, where school and education were being challenged by the teen, the flamboyant Mingus dabbling in crime to take care of his girl and contributing to the household, the matriarch also selling her own stock – and brew, of alcohol both legal and illegal, as she and her family keep watch out for the police, and Charles, forever wanting to please everyone, as he runs back and forth at the instruction of Mingus.
The much older Fafhee drops by at any time, and together with everyone in the house, they discuss the imminent move, their plans to defy the apartheid police, to stage protests and boycott school, while Jakes, with his nose buried in his typewriter paper and shelve of books, is always on the lookout for the big scoop of the day.
Rose is a breath of fresh and different air, and to them all she brings out is a sense of curiosity as she is white and privileged and could be seen as one with the oppressor, something she is constantly challenged with and which she constantly defends herself against, while she lends a helping hand in the chores – cooking and helping Lulu with her schoolwork.
Then there is Princess, a girl who sees Rose as a threat for the affections of Mingus and someone who has come in to replace her in the home when she is a prima donna herself, hell-bent on keeping up appearances with the dresses and perfumes lavished upon her by her boyfriend.
The cast engages in constant conversations, especially about their fear and intention not to move to Meadowlands, and they sing and dance, often bickering, while Fafhee throws his numbers around to explain it all.
The audience, many of who were dressed in their Kofifi outfits to honour the play, were kept enthralled as the stage changed from day to night and scene to scene, and as a live band played in the background, right until the dreaded move threw them all into disarray.
The audience is caught up in an emotional whirlwind as Ruth voices how her love was spurned by Jakes; Princess takes on a modelling job with a Dutch photographer, much to the disdain of her lover Mingus; Charlie is kicked to the curb after begging his boss Mingus to take him with, because Meadowlands would have no place for a coloured boy.
The matriarch tells them the story of the lorries arriving to move her away, and she speaks from a chair perched atop one of them, with Lulu leaning against her and talking about the pain of it all.
Fafhe also moves, and Charlie, the narrative tells, wound up dead in the rubble – with a knife in his back, as he crawled five blocks to the Getty street shebeen, and this brings tears to the many who grew fond of him as all realise – it may be a story being played out on a stage, but for changes here and there, it was real life lived at a painful time in South Africa, and which must not be forgotten as the country evolves.
Pretoria News