THEATRE: Bafana Khumalo
T HERE is something terribly dated about The Hill, a=20 Zakes Mda-penned play looking at the lives of the poor in=20 Southern Africa. It transports one back to the bad old=20 past, when migrant labour was still considered a thing=20 worth talking about and the collusion of the church in=20 people’s oppression was a favoured subject in some=20
This is, however, not an indictment of the play; in fact,=20 it is a positive aspect for, at a time when most cultural=20 creators are concerned with reconstruction, development=20 and celebrating how good it is to be “free at last, free=20 at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last”, it is=20 necessary to note that the destruction is still in full=20 swing. The Hill is one such note.
The play, directed by Philiswa Biko at the Market, looks=20 at the Basotho people whose lives are an eternal quest to=20 overcome the poverty and corruption of post-colonial=20 Africa. Their saviour is the white man’s gold mines in=20 South Africa; although the men’s lives are a litany of=20 humiliation and oppression, the mines offer the only hope=20 of escape.=20
One is transported into the lives of the migrants, shown=20 how some of them find new families in the urban areas and=20 forget where they come from. One is also afforded a=20 glimpse into the fate of the women, and the desperate=20 measures they have to take to survive once the men have=20 left to look for gold and coal. This angle is=20 particularly welcome, since representations of black=20 men’s oppression are so common one would imagine that=20 women have not been touched at all.
Job Kubatsi is well cast as the ageing man who, having=20 worked on the mines before, is desperate to return now=20 that his crops have failed him. Kubatsi, a veteran actor=20 whose talents are usually wasted in terrible SABC ethnic=20 dramas, is given a rare opportunity to show his mettle.
The Hill — like Mda’s other recent work, You Fool, How=20 Can the Sky Fall? — makes disconcerting use of humour.=20 One is lulled into a false sense of comfort — then, when=20 least expected, the presentation grabs one by the neck,=20 shaking one into realising that not everything in our=20 lives is a laugh-a-minute session. This is so when one of=20 our hapless heroes finally gets his contract to work in=20 the gold mines: tragedy underlies his victory, for it is=20 a hollow one.