Now in their seventh year, Not the Midnight Mass’=20 slightly sleazy edge is still razor-sharp, writes HAZEL=20
WHAT can you say about a troupe of actors-turned- singers who transformed an unemployment pit-stop and=20 after-hours slot between tits’n’bum time into an=20 institution? It’s pretty much been said before: the=20 eulogies to their Addams Family antics, their top –=20 make that over-the-top — singing form, and their=20 subterranean wit which would have buried lesser talents=20 under a barrage of naartjie pips. Yet Pinky, Toby Tall=20 and the rest of the sacrilegious choir of Not the=20 Midnight Mass have still got lots to say. They’ve=20 cleaned out their closet, swopped their neo-Gothic=20 habits for PVC and finally emerged Out of the Abbey in=20 streetwise splendour.
There was nothing to beat the smoky subversiveness of=20 their Black Sun performances. But at their current=20 venue, Rosebank’s Theatre on the Square, they’ve almost=20 recaptured the intimacy of those years. They might not=20 be performing in the old cockroach dive — the State=20 Theatre is next on the agenda — and their spoofs on=20 the jol and zol (“heey, this is spiritual smoke, maan”)=20 no longer shock suburban sophisticates, but that=20 slightly sleazy edge is still pretty sharp.
Now in their seventh year of mass hysteria, the A- Capella Team have grown a creative umbilical cord that=20 constantly feeds off and into one another.
“The Mass has become as much a part of us as we are a=20 part of it. We’ll be doing it when we’re 50,” says=20 Graham Weir, who, with sister Christine and Jenny de=20 Lenta, forms the core of a team that includes the=20 talents of Terence Reis and newcomer Simon Jones.
The bond between the Weirs and De Lenta stretches as=20 far as the East Rand town of Benoni, where, as=20 children, they performed in pageants together. They=20 went on to pursue separate careers, until De Lenta was=20 chosen to fill the shoes of Natalie Gamsu, who=20 performed with the troupe during their Black Sun stint.
“When we began the Mass, we wanted to be regarded as=20 serious singers. We’d stand round a single microphone=20 and belt out songs in sober earnestness,” recalls=20 Christine Weir. “Then we discovered — or, rather, were=20 told — that we were funny in a childish sort of way.”
Their “in-your-eye” silliness allows them to get away=20 with appalling puns like “Roberta Maygaybe” — an=20 obvious send-up of the Zimbabwean president’s=20 hysterical opposition to gay rights.
But don’t underestimate their serious side. The=20 haunting El Bahran, composed and sung by Graham Weir as=20 a spiritual invocation and indictment of conditions in=20 South Africa’s mines, offers a timely respite from the=20 barrage of bawd. And in their rendition of Bach’s=20 Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, their polish and=20 discipline come to the fore.=20
This combination of tongue-in-cranny humour and hard- core professionalism has earned them a new congregation=20 of mainstream converts. They penetrate South Africa’s=20 cultural consciousness in much the same way as=20 braaivleis and rugby have been absorbed into its=20 consumer pathology.=20
So it makes sense that the final Not the Midnight Mass=20 movement should be a song composed for them by kindred=20 East Rand Outbacker, the late James Phillips. It is a=20 profoundly personal song, yet simultaneously taps into=20 the peculiarities of the South African psyche. Called=20 You Light Me a Light, it certainly sums up the power of=20 the Mass.
Not the Midnight Mass performs Out of the Abbey at the=20 Theatre on the Square in Rosebank until September 30