Review of the week
Peter Makurube
Five Guys Named Mo is a first rate musical set in Forties America – a story of love and friendship threaded around the music of jazz great Louis Jordan. The main theatre at The Market is the perfect venue for a show of this magnitude that has thrilled countless audiences in the West since being nominated for a Tony Award in 1992.
The five Mo’s are all in fine fettle. No doubt if the story was told with American accents the cast might have had a hell of a time pulling it off. But the idea to localise aspects of the production – like dance and occasional tsotsi-taal, pure Zulu and Sesotho – was a good one.
One of the cast members, Somizi Mhlongo, was chosen to choreograph the show and his dance improvisations are a marvel to watch. The ndlamu and pantsula sequences are particularly impressive. However, he came short with the tap dance solo.
The glimpses we get of township life and lingo point towards participation by the actors in the content and direction in the production – a good thing. For too long black stories have been told by whites, leading to severe distortions. This time round, an experienced director, who happens to be white, Craig Freimond, makes space for actor input and the result is a fairly sizzling show. The actors are clearly having a ball on that stage.
This being a musical, the music takes up much of the time, which is just as well because the acting perhaps needs some polish. Perhaps my order is too tall but if you’re an actor required to sing or a singer required to act, both arts should be tackled with equal rigour. But then one wonders how a bunch of American actors would do if given the script to Todd Matshikiza’s King Kong.
This brings us back to matters local. If this brilliant piece of work was done a while ago, why revive it rather than many of our own past musicals? Had they presented Back In Your Own Backyard, a sizzler by the late Ben Satch Masinga, these young actors would only have gained. They’d have been exposed to fine theatre made under difficult conditions and learned a bit about their own history. It would also have given audiences the chance to view the work of one of the most dynamic and unsung heroes of the South African stage.
If Freimond, whose heart seems to be in the right place, didn’t know of Masinga’s existence, he can be forgiven. This country has yet to learn about itself and then only will it be able to move forward. There are far more world class South African musicals the Market Theatre could revive. Apart from the plays of Gibson Kente, there’s Reverend Maqina’s Give Us This Day, Victor Ntoni’s Meropa and Katse Semenya’s Buwa, which the whole of Africa, excluding us, has had the chance to see.
Those who give the world what we have, normally make it abroad. Those who interpret foreign dramas remain small town heroes. When Mbongeni Ngema took Sarafina abroad he was a big success. When Evita went abroad, she went down well. Sibikwa Players have travelled the globe over and over. Duma ka Ndlovu’s Sheila’s Day made it in New York City and, of course, Athol Fugard is a global theatre figure. Zakes Mokae won a Tony Award in a Fugard play in the United States.
All the actors in Five Guys are talented fellows who have proved their mettle in other plays before. The fact that they tackle a foreign script and get the audiences to dance the night away is proof of our artists’ versatility, but does it help them grow?
Five Guys Named Mo is still a lot of fun. The cast is full of energy and enthusiasm. Their singing and dancing does overshadow the acting but what the hell, it’s all push ka pishkie. This is fun theatre. If you don’t care about the story at least go hear the backing band. It’s swing all right – from a time when Americans made good music and had better fashion sense.
Five Guys Named Mo is on at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg until May 8