THEATRE: David Le Page
MARABI is a musical story of the Doornfontein slumyards of early Johannesburg, and of the musical culture that sprang up from that misery. If anything, this Junction Avenue Theatre Company production at the Market Theatre celebrates marabi culture more than the music
The play focuses on the lives of the Mabongo family and the people who share their home. They represent the first generation of blacks who moved from country to city, and the tension between the old and the new, the traditional and the disruptively modern, is the most obvious of Marabi’s themes. Mabongo, played by Ramolao Makhene, is the head of the family, a loving father who struggles with the demands of urbanised life.
For Mabongo, marabi is a dirty word, representing the abandonment of the values and respectability represented by his rural family. Makhene is assured and convincing in the role; the agony of Mabongo, in his various trials and humiliations, is almost archetypal.
Mabongo’s wife is a town woman, Mamabongo, who is the anchor of the family. She brews skomfana, the beer which is consumed in vast quantities at marabi parties, encourages her daughters to pursue their education, and struggles with her husband, who has never been sure he did the right thing in marrying her. Unfortunately, Thembi Mtshali’s performance doesn’t quite find all the emotion in her role.
Their daughter Martha (Nkhensani Manganyi) carries their hopes but realises all their fears in her liaison with George (Arthur Molepo), a marabi player who is a bit of a two-timing double- crosser; their affair ends entirely
Marabi was conceived in workshops led by Ari Sitas in 1981, inspired by Modikwe Dikobe’s book, Marabi Dance. This production has been extensively reworked by director Malcolm Purkey, and is strongly written, with snappy dialogue and some amusing scenes. Yet there is little in it that surprises.
The unexploited strength of the script, at least partly, seems to lie in the character of Ntebejane. Ntebejane was a real person, a musician deemed the father of marabi music and of South African jazz, though the latter appellation would have appalled him.
He is a jester, a man whose ugliness appalled as much as his music enthralled, a talented artist who dreams, wonderfully, of using music to fight off the police. His character has inspired what is by far the most exciting performance in Marabi. Mthandeni Mvelase is excellent as the musical “monkey” who radiates energy, wickedness and unabashed pleasure in
The drama unfolds in a kind of timeless slumyard of the Twenties, Thirties and Forties; references to the UN are thrown in long before the organisation existed. Regretfully this production, strong in many respects, does not feel nearly so timeless. At least half an hour too long, it fails to make up for the rigours of the Market’s seating.
Marabi runs at the Market in Newtown until January 13