/ 3 December 1999

Pelvis-plunging titillation

Stephen Gray

Review of the week

In 1981, Mbongeni Ngema himself, clandestinely in the alcove of what is now the Gramadoelas Restaurant at Johannesburg’s Market Theatre, launched the wonderful protest cabaret, Woza Albert!. He had little in the world except talent to back it, but was going to go everywhere. One of the characters he played was Zuluboy, the poorest of the poor, thrusting his knobkerrie in frustration at the chastened audience. And remember the liberation saviours that classic piece evoked: Albert Luthuli, Robert Sobukwe, Bram Fischer, even Ruth First.

Nearly two decades later, Ngema’s circumstances have changed. He is back at the Market, but in the Main Theatre, virtually single-handedly saving it from going dark with an extravagant musical. This is a huge crowd-pleaser, brash and brassy enough, without any mental taxing, to keep pulling family-sized parties in.

So don’t knock The Zulu: The Battle of Isandlwana: The Epic Story of King Cetshwayo ka Mpande (to give the full title), for, in this town, it is the only “breathtaking spectacular [sic], with a host of 30 vividly costumed dancers and a chorus of singers to whirl us into the tradition of Broadway shows”.

Nowadays Ngema is described as of “swashbuckling bravura, star power and a musical genius”. While his biography in the programme takes up all of 40 lines, his new wife, Leleti Khumalo, gets only four, and most of the rest of his hard- working, well-drilled company have to do with alphabetical listings.

The icon now evoked by him has become King Shaka himself, who, during bouts of ethnic cleansing, is actually lit up in a cute cameo, plunging his cultural weapon into us all. What justifies this tasteless display, one wonders meekly, if apartheid has at last gone and today we may choose to gather together, and pay good money, to pass the time celebrating that we have escaped race wars? Surely Ngema must be in control; he cannot be saying that Zulus should shoot only when they see the eyes of the whites.

Not only did he write the script of the show this time, but its music, or at least the demented disco that passes as such. He directs it too, and has a hand in the choreography and in conceiving the costumes. He was assisted in his historical research by Mbalawehhashi Vukayibambe Ngema, uses extra songs by Matshitshi’anolwazi Ngema (who appears as Mnyamana Buthelezi), has in the cast Lindiwe Ngema, with Bhoyi Ngema as well (as the grandly lookalike King Cetshwayo). No longer a poor artist, he has become rather a clan unto himself.

The show premiered recently in Wiesboden (to quote the programme again), has toured Germany, Austria and timid Denmark, so is very well broken in. Almost any of the routines would make a dazzling display, say at some lodge after a good buffet, or at an end-of-year school concert. Yet the show never really comes together as more than pelvis- plunging titillation suitable for tourists.

Firstly, it wilfully fails in being dramatic. When the Swazi maiden is packed off against her will to marry the Zulu sovereign, her story is just dropped, and sweet Leleti has nothing left to do for the rest of the show. (How did she take him, what made her betray him for Jesus?) When at last the big battle is staged, we have already seen the fine swains amass and crack their shields six times.

Secondly, the voices of some wonderful singers are plainly abused. Balance problems are shocking: youths at my knee in the aisle at one point were trying to be heard, but all one got was the moving lips.

Thirdly, that touchy historical angle. As John Laband and none other than the deputy president of the republic, Jacob Zuma, are credited as consultants, why is so much of it inaccurate? Although the Brits wrote Cetshwayo as Cetewayo by an early spelling convention, they never pronounced it that way. There was a Dunn and a Durnford, but no Dunnford!

The Battle of Isandlwana was indeed “A! GREAT! ZULU! Victory!” (all the diction is like that), but it certainly did not cost Benjamin Disraeli his job. In winning a battle while losing a war, however, it must be said that what Cetshwayo’s people then had to forego – 120 years ago – was their entire kingdom.

Instead of facing and interpreting such a difficult outcome for contemporary use, Ngema just calls it all off with the chorus in a fabulous rough and tumble. Their accompaniment is on no beautiful Zulu instrument, but a British regimental drum. Looted on the battleground, I suppose.

Woza, the late Barney Simon, I say. He would have made a real show out of the detail that the Boers had knicked the young Cetshwayo’s ear, for example – so that they could identify his corpse one day …

Got out feeling deafened and depressed. Discovered my car had been stolen from the Market Theatre parking lot. Should have stayed home.

The Zulu shows at the Market Theatre until January 15 2000