Emma Durden : On stage in Hilton
When a piece of theatre is both popular and well put-together, and purports to exist purely to keep theatre alive and kicking in this country, then we know that art is going somewhere. This was my overwhelming feeling after seeing Ipi Zombi? in the Natal Midlands this weekend.
I chatted to Brett Bailey, the energetic, overall-clad director of the Third World Bunfight among the well-mannered boys and their well-heeled parents at the vibrant Hilton Festival. It’s a far cry from where they’ve been seen since the show was nominated “best of the fest” in Grahamstown in July this year.
After the thunderous applause of festival goers died down, the company retreated for three weeks of extensive rehearsal and reworking before embarking on a tour of the Eastern Cape. They brushed up their skills with acting, mime, yoga and singing classes, translated the entire script into Xhosa, and made the adjustments necessary to turn the piece into a travelling play. This is no mean feat. The tour has seen them playing in venues as varied as the Amatola Sun and an abandoned netball court.
This new version was tested in township schools in Rhini, outside Grahamstown, before hitting the road. They have toured extensively, reaching an estimated 50E000 people over the past few months. One has to ask what’s driving them to do this.
Brett has a range of answers. What they boil down to is a personal feeling that the art of story-telling in this country is dying, and that there is an enormous untapped audience out there who need to be a part of its revival.
He wanted to take the play, a true story of a road accident in KwaZulu-Natal and its bizarre consequences in a small town, to people who have very little experience of theatre. This has happened to quite a remarkable effect.
In a small settlement in the old Transkei, the crowd of people that massed to see who these oddly adorned strangers were, did not believe that they were real people. The opening combination of masks and shrouds and clay-covered bodies is indeed somewhat macabre and fantastical. A palpable fear among this particular audience translated to the actors, and the levels of discomfort arose to the point where the action had to be stopped, and an explanation of what was happening ensued.
The actors have often had to find a way to control or calm the audience. An exposed hillside in the rain is not quite the same as a comfortable theatre, and the responses to the production are often as elemental as these venues.
The play lends itself to the development of this kind of relationship, breaking down the barriers between audience and actor, with ongoing narration that reminds us that they are there for a particular reason.
The piece documents the reaction of a town in a frenzy, and sets out to challenge the beliefs of those involved, but it is not, as Brett stresses, anthropology, it is definitely art. At first glance, the way the company operates (taking a local story that deals with local concerns and offering it up without any solutions to the problems posed) seems to fit with the theatre for development theory and practices of Augusto Boal and Paulo Freire. Brett, however, does not see it fitting into that category. He is not trying to uplift anybody, and avoids what he terms “RDP theatre”.
He simply wants to take theatre to new places and to “blow people’s heads off” through the process. This he certainly does. It is a stunning production, visually exciting and aurally stimulating.
A finely tuned piece that had us shocked into silence and hooting with laughter in turn. Sure, we all thought a bit about religion and death and life in this strange country, but the feeling that sticks is just plain “wow!” and it seems as though this is happening throughout the country, with audiences of any colour.
The opening monologue, “We are the pride of this place, we are the storytellers” sums up what the company is trying do; bring the art of theatre back into the lives of the people. It continues: “while others are locked in at home watching their televisions, we tell stories from the heart of the country.”
The story of Ipi Zombie? is a fascinating one, and easily understood by any audience. Cast members say that the relationships built up through the performance, and the responses from different communities, are varied. A rural Eastern Cape audience, familiar with the forms of funeral and mourning shown in the play, have the time to catch the nuance and humour that is embedded in the scene -whereas people in the Hilton audience were far more like spectators, watching an event. The company feels that this discrepancy of “spectacle” versus “slice of life” is apparent with these different groups.
Be that as it may, I think that anybody watching it is confronted with a number of questions about belief, law and society. There is a certain recognition of the issues and emotions that are explored, and the predominantly white audience that I was a part of was with the cast all the way; caught up in the ritual, the exuberance and the fear.