Lehlohonolo Shale Buchaki Theatre’s projects have always had the ability to infuse comedy in order to penetrate some of our social taboos – principally betrayal in relationships. This is the line that runs through Wrong Day, its current offering at Hillbrow’s Windybrow Theatre. Formed during the turmoil of the Eighties, the company produced some of its notable works in the period – Top Down in 1988 and Golden Gloves in 1991, for example. Throughout its existence the group has sought to link up with community-theatre practitioners by way of conducting skills-sharing programmes. The latest work is a culmination of workshops held at provincial schools.
In its concerns, Wrong Day is close to their 1998 production Mistress Mugambo that looked at the intrigues of a wealthy schemer who manipulated his way to a schoolgirl’s heart, in the process managing to entangle her mother. It was a classic love triangle urging its audience to question the seemingly base morals of society. For their latest production, Buchaki have employed playwright Mufunanji Magalasi to pen the tale of relations in a Jo’burg city business. Here we meet the adulterous boss, Mr Goodman Ncube (Thabo Mabe), reprimanding his helper, Johannes Moagi (Khaya Zondi), for trying to steal his love interest. Moagi, of course, denies these allegations vehemently – right up to the moment when the lunch he buys his boss sends his victim’s stomach running. When a secretary is indecently approached by Moagi, a verbal onslaught follows, stretching vocabulary to dizzying heights. In the manner of a true farce, Wrong Day also includes mistaken identity, infidelity and sexual foul play.
The office location is transformed into an ad hoc courtroom after the unscrupulous Moagi is caught by his own bogus muti. What follows is a trial wherein he is accused of dispossessing his boss of his valuables, including household furniture. We witness the defence of Mrs Moagi, who claims her husband “cannot kill a fly!” Seeing the piece, one is drawn into the possibilities of theatre in post-1994 South Africa. No longer is the spectacle between an overwhelming, sjambok-wielding oppressor and his empty-handed victim. Rather, it is the spectacle of life encountered within our own communities. The common aspiration of the head and its own hand leads to conflict. And we are shown how certain traditions come to influence these interests. At one point, for example, the play’s anti-hero, Moagi, even shows prejudice against his boss on the basis that the Ncube clan traces its roots back to Kwadukuza in KwaZulu-Natal. To this fact Magi blasts out with parochial arrogance that he doesn’t care whether the Ncubes came to their township “before Soweto was Soweto”. Though the writer-director avoids a preachy road one can read into the play some virtuosity, mostly in the work’s judgement of those who cross the accepted codes of morality. Whatever the subtext, it’s heartening to find that, in the midst of what is conceived to be the wasteland of high-density Hillbrow, there are groups pursuing higher artistic standards. Wrong Day runs at the Windybrow Theatre, Nugget Street, until November 4. Enquiries: Tel: (011) 720 7094