Phillip Kakaza
Dramatist Percy Mtwa was one of the loudest voices in South African theatre in the Eighties. He and Mbongeni Ngema helped to usher in this rich theatrical decade with that famous two-hander, Woza Albert!
But the late 1980s saw Mtwa sidelined after his success with Woza Albert! and Bopha! In fact, his principles as a talented actor and playwright caused him to clash with Hollywood’s Paramount Pictures, which had the rights to turn Bopha! into a film.
Directed by Morgan Freeman and featuring American actors Alfre Woodard and Danny Glover, the film and its Hollywood film-makers compromised Mtwa’s integrity.
Mtwa was disappointed at the way the story was interpreted. “The play had an anti-imperialist message and Hollywood wanted to manipulate the story and impose its own ideas on the film. I was ignored,” says Mtwa.
When the film was due to be released in South Africa in 1994, Mtwa brought an application to the Cape Town Supreme Court to stop the release of the film. The case was dismissed with costs. That was when his trouble started. He initiated a lawsuit, had to pay lawyers and attorneys and had soon lost his house and car.
Disillusioned with the state of the arts, he disappeared from the theatre scene for several years.
Now he is back. At the invitation of the director of Windybrow Theatre, Walter Chakela, he has been installed as artistic director and is ready to immerse himself in the job.
Mtwa says he is like a new-born calf and wants to use this chance for bigger projects. His brief at Windybrow is to develop new works, actors and directors. He may even develop a production of his own, The Elephant, that he started writing in 1988. But he prefers not to talk too much about it.
“The Elephant is not a political play,” he says. “It’s a renaissance piece, I suppose. A giant leap from Woza Albert! and Bopha! It deals with scientific issues as opposed to traditional ones.”
The elephant of the play is hidden in a dark cave. People have to go inside the cave to touch the animal and guess what it is. They are wrong about what they have perceived when they emerge, but when they return with candles they can see what they were feeling.
“It is very metaphoric,” says Mtwa. “It makes you think and that’s what theatre should do.”
Mtwa got backing into his stride when directing Cabbages and Bullets, a play that enjoyed a long run at Windybrow.
He also directed The Pain, which opens at Windybrow this week. Written by budding playwright Emily Tseu, The Pain was featured at the Windybrow Arts Festival.
Mtwa is fascinated by the works of young playwrights. “There is so much potential among youngsters but their talents need development.” It is for this reason that he was brought into the stable of Windybrow, a theatre committed to putting community-based plays on a professional stage.
“There is a need to draw a line between community theatre and professional theatre. Most of the time community theatre does not cross racial lines. Even with Woza Albert! I wanted Barney Simon to direct the play so it could be appreciated by all race groups,” he says.
He workshopped The Pain with Tseu for weeks, developing the script so that it meets the standards of a national theatre.
“We need to work twice as hard to become internationally competitive. African theatre practitioners put more effort into music and dancing than acting. We need to revive the qualities that make theatre unique by putting more effort into acting and writing.”
Mtwa is adamant that hard work and support from his wife, Dirontso, also a dramatist, will keep him going. They might collaborate on The Elephant which is proposed as the next production at Windybrow.
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