Environmentally friendly theatre a winner

While plays about most burning issues – poverty, HIV/Aids, sexuality – abound at the Festival there is an inexplicable silence about climate change and environmental degradation. Despite media bombardment on these topics, the art scene, with a few exceptions, seems not to have responded.

Sylivia’s Ball, one of the lone voices on the topic, makes the link between environmental degradation and cancer. Despite its subject, the play, which suggests that we humans “treat the world as we treat ourselves,” is humorous. The two producer performers, Alistair Moulton Black and Oliver Stephens, got it right when they decided that it’s better not to preach when presenting this kind of “docu-theatre”.

“The world will survive but that doesn’t mean we will … Mother has many tricks up her sleeve,” Moulton Black says congenially.

Another show which uses humour as a platform for education is H2O. Information about water conservation is seamlessly inserted by the performers in this frenetic, interactive work.

In Eco-Wolf and the Three Pigs a classic children’s folk tale is adapted to teach a lesson about stopping rampant industrialisation. Directed and adapted by Daniel Buckland, the play encourages children to start thinking in a more eco-friendly fashion. In this tale it is the three pigs (echoes of Orwell?) who are the villainous industrialists, and the wolf who is the eco-friendly being trying to stop them in their filthy tracks.

In a performance art show incorporating dance and multimedia, 21st Century Animal explores man’s place in the civilised world. The show is provocative, encouraging audiences/viewers to question their place in the environment.

A seasoned hand in the eco genre is Nicholas Ellenbogen, who has been working in environmental theatre for over thirty years. He believes the dearth of environmental theatre at the Festival is a reaction to an overabundance of environmental shows in the 1990s. “It became popular for a while but I think environmental theatre (makers) began to repeat themselves,” he says.

“When you bring a piece to the Festival people come because of the quality of the theatre, not because of the environmental issues,” Ellenbogen emphasises. With most people looking for something fresh, it will be up to young artists to develop the next generation of environmental theatre.

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The deafening sound of silence

Comedic and tragic by turns; Gumbo is an original and distinctive piece of physical theatre. Beyond its theatrical merits; it is remarkable in that it is the first professional production to bring deaf and hearing performers together at the National Arts Festival.

As the stage is illuminated a weary young man (Lysander Barends) is revealed; seated at a plain table, head nestled in his hands. He is the kitchen boy and general dogs-body at a sea-side inn run by his father (Rob Murray).

The father’s relationship with his deaf son is uncaring and violent; he has never bothered to learn how to communicate with him and could only be described as a father in the biological sense.

There is no common ground between them and the inn-keeper physically abuses his son when frustrated, or bored.

The basic plot of Gumbo seems quite dark; however, it is kept eminently consumable by its emphasis on physical humour and is suitable for children.

It is influenced by the clowning school of physical theatre and one is strongly reminded of Laurel and Hardy in the interactions between the inn-keeper and his son.

Gumbo’s comedic tone highlights the more serious issues of abuse and marginalisation present at the core of this narrative; as well as the themes of rejection and acceptance which it explores.

When people are trapped in cycles of abuse it is often hard for them to break it without some catalyst, some person or event, which sparks rebellion and self-recognition.

For the son, this catalyst begins with the wind-swept arrival of a travelling salesman (Marlon Snyders) and his daughter (Liezl de Kock) at the inn. The inn-keeper plies the salesman with wine and then convinces him to play several rounds of cards. Over-confident after several victories, the man bets his daughter against the inn…and loses.

The inn-keeper wants to take the daughter for his bride but she is defiant and fights off his advances. The presence of girl awakes something within the young man, for the first time he finds companionship and solace. Through this relationship the seeds of a confrontation between the inn-keeper and his son are planted.

The company responsible for Gumbo, From The Hip: Khulumakahle (FTH:K), has been working to raise awareness about the challenges faced by deaf people for many years.

While there are many initiatives to overcome the racial inequality propagated by South Africa’s apartheid government; the deaf community are also “fighting against a history of marginalisation” says Gumbo director, and FTH:K company manager, Tanya Surtees.

FTH:K takes a pro-active approach in combating problems such as illiteracy, unemployment and poverty by running arts theatre training programmes for deaf performers.

The company runs theatre arts programmes with deaf learners from a high school level all the way to professional training for individuals wishing to pursue a career in theatre. Surtees says FTH:K aims to create a “space for deaf and hearing artists on the stage”

Gumbo is the product of FTH:K’s deaf/hearing integrated professional development programme (IPDP), the most advanced level of training offered by the company. The course is intended for artists who wish to pursue a career in theatre and a few graduates might find employment in the company.

Originally shown at the end of 2006, enthusiastic response prompted FTH:K to take Gumbo on tour to Johannesburg and Polokwane. Following the Arts festival Gumbo will be attending The Hilton Arts Festival in September of this year.

Gumbo will be showing at the Princess Alice Hall at 2pm daily for the duration of the festival.

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Puppets come of age

THE association of puppets with children’s theatre has changed in recent years, thanks to such companies as the Handspring Puppet Company and puppeteers such as Gary Friedman. Several productions at the Festival use puppetry to explore serious dramatic themes.

Violet Rose Bite with Janni Younge is a reflective piece following a woman’s journey into adulthood. The audience is not simply a voyeur in this production. Rather they are a guest, invited into the home and world of the performer. Younge interacts with the audience and draws them into her story. She uses puppets to represent repressed aspects of the psyche and the defences we construct to deal with an increasingly complicated world we encounter as we grow up.

The puppets are the physical form of Younge’s inner voice, criticising, commanding and comforting at various points during the performance. The voice, as represented by the puppet, develops in three stages as the performer matures. The puppet Younge uses has interchangeable heads to reflect this change.

“The visual aspect of the object has (mental) and emotional impact. Puppets are already visually arresting and then you breathe life into it. There is a layering of the object and it interacts with the audience.”

La Loba incorporates shadows and multimedia with puppetry. The show was created by Aja Marneweck. It was originally a one-woman show before it was developed into its current form by Marneweck and fellow performer and videographer Jacqueline van Meygaarden.

Her puppets are surreal beings created out of swathes of brown paper. Their crumpled, slightly eerie appearance foregrounds the play. Marneweck says they allow the puppets to lead the pace of the piece, flowing with the movement of the paper.

The show explores the identities imposed on women by society and female identities considered outside the norm. The main character often talks about the weight of being a woman, the burdens which are attached to womanhood. Although rooted in feminist mythology and archetypes,
Marneweck and Meygaarden believe the concepts explored in the show are universal to men and women.

Marneweck cites Philippe Genty’s 1999 Festival production of Dedale as an important factor leading to her interest in puppetry. Like Younge, she trained at the National School of Puppetry in France. She believes that working with puppets is “powerful in encouraging creativity.”

Andrew Buckland uses two puppets in his production of Voetsak: one is the life-size head and torso of a woman and the other is little more then a head. Buckland draws attention to the relationship between the manipulator and the puppet as well as the essential interdependence of their relationship. On working with puppets, Buckland said he found it interesting in “taking an internal image that one is imagining and (be able) to infuse it into an object.”

A story of Helen Brain is told in Here Be Lions. Brain is a renowned children’s author, but one of her stories was refused publication. She wrote it in order to come to terms with the physical abuse she suffered from a family member as a child. Here Be Lions weaves Brain’s personal story together, using puppets to tell her journey of emotional healing. Karen Jeynes, who performs the work, describes it as “quite dark and macabre”. Jeynes also directs Violet Rose Bite.

Puppets in the street theatre production of Shark represent the loans, both monetary and emotional – that people take everyday. The stories are based on the experiences of its performers, young people from Grahamstown’s Rini township. They explore the dangers, tragedies and obstacles they face in life.

Mouche uses more traditional puppets to bring to life the sad story of ventriloquist puppeteer Michael Peyrot, and his love for a woman called Mouche. Performer Tim Redpath is Peyrot and the puppets are the different characters with which he interacts. The hand-puppets Redpath uses are recognisable as the type often used in children’s theatre.

Younge and Marnewerke are the driving force behind the Out The Box Festival, running in Cape Town in September. Now in its fifth year, the festival is intended to encourage the performance and appreciation of adult puppet theatre in South Africa.

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*All of the above articles were published in the Cue Newspaper between 31 June and 10 July 2008