SPOTLIGHT SOUTH AFRICA presented by Canadian Stage at the Berkeley Street Theatre (26 Berkeley) and the Bluma Appel Theatre (27 Front East). Opens April 8 and runs to April 25 see website for venues and schedule. $30-$99. 416-368-3110, canadianstage.com.
The 1994 democratic elections in South Africa, the first in the country’s history, were “the single most important political event in our lifetime,” says Matthew Jocelyn.
Artistic and general director of Canadian Stage, Jocelyn wanted to celebrate that event and the 25th anniversary of the freeing of Nelson Mandela.
To do so, he chose the company’s biennial Spotlight series, which in the past has brought in contemporary Italian and Japanese artists. Six productions will play in Toronto over the next three weeks.
“I wanted to explore what theatre and dance artists have to say about their country several decades after they’d achieved freedom of expression,” says the genial, articulate Jocelyn. “I first went there in 2013 and discovered a community of creators who offer a variety of disciplines and perspectives on history and today’s life in South Africa.
“It’s important to emphasize the political focus of what we’ll see. It’s impossible to be a South African artist without being engaged in some political dialogue. By that I don’t mean being right or left but rather investigating the living conditions of the country today and the wounds and scars of apartheid and centuries of abuse, as well as the drastic economic and other conditions in which many live.”
Central to the art, not surprisingly, is the cultural colonization that took place for so many years.
“Many of the pieces deal with the dialogue between colonialized and indigenous art. Choreographer and dancer Mamela Nyamza has created two works, The Meal (April 8 to 12) and Hatched (April 15 to 19), that look at what it means to be subjugated by the culture of another people.”
Trained as a classical dancer, Mamela never had a chance to dance a mainstage role. Both pieces examine how she connected with indigenous dance and what that means to her.
Johannesburg’s Market Theatre, perhaps the best-known theatre outside South Africa, is sending a revival of Athol Fugard’s 1959 play Nongogo (April 8 to 12), helmed by artistic director James Ngcobo and featuring five actors who are TV stars in the country.
“It’s about a woman forced to be a sex trader, haunted by her past, trying to make a different life for herself by running a coffee house,” offers Jocelyn. “Set in a contemporary township, it rings as true today as when it was written.”
If you saw the stage version of War Horse, you won’t have forgotten the incredible horse puppets made by Handspring Puppet Company. The troupe’s work is central in Jane Taylor’s Ubu And The Truth Commission (April 15 to 19), directed by visual artist William Kentridge.
The show blends live actors, puppets, animation, music and documentary footage in a look at the Truth And Reconciliation Commission, set up by Mandela to, as Jocelyn phrases it, “bring together those in the former regime and those who fought it to speak to each other so the nation could move ahead.
“Some heinous crimes were dismissed with a mere slap on the wrist, though. This play looks at some of the commission’s shortcomings using playwright Alfred Jarry’s character Ubu, a huge megalomaniac with a sense of entitlement and omnipotence. He’s joined onstage by puppets representing a crocodile, a vulture and a bloodhound.”
The cover of this year’s Canadian Stage program features the image of a man in high heels “dressed” in a chandelier. He’s Steven Cohen, whose performance piece Chandelier (April 22 to 25) documents the 2001 razing of the community of Newtown in Johannesburg.
“Those who lived there had little warning of the destruction of their homes and no place to go,” says Jocelyn. “Steven was there as his hermaphroditic alter ego, walking around the rubble and filming it for this presentation.
“A white artist who spends thoughtful and imaginative time recognizing the horrors for which his ancestors were responsible, Steven reveals how a white population still benefits from an inequitable situation.”
The final Spotlight South Africa show is choreographer Luyanda Sidiya’s Dominion (April 22 to 25), a “dance diptych” whose first part is a “modernized tribal dance, a riveting, trancelike blend of aesthetic and gymnastic beauty.
“The second half tells the story of Africa today, a cyclic repetition of military abuse and tyranny. The work covers the indigenous side of a beautiful culture, the forces that this culture has been subjected to and the difficulty of breaking out of that situation.”
Outside the festival, Jocelyn has been building links between Canada and South Africa, including having a young director from the Market Theatre assistant-direct this summer’s Shakespeare in High Park.
“Toronto audiences have a healthy appetite for strong contemporary art by thoughtful, radical creators from around the world,” smiles Jocelyn. “We’re helping to feed it with the largest celebration of South African artists that Canada has ever held.”
