The trials of Brother Nelson Mandela and his disputed art works from Robben Island (not to mention the steel-lined tennis racquet that was never raised in anger or in sport by the venerable elder statesman during his unfortunate period of incarceration, but was first heard of earlier this year at a London auction gallery, from whence it later disappeared) are nothing compared with the latest furore surrounding the recently discovered portfolio of comedy-rock musicals co-written by the Dalai Lama and the late pope John Paul II. These include post-humous gospel-inspired music and lyrics by Jim Reeves, Elvis Presley and (as an afterthought) Ray Charles on a blind date with Nina Simone.
First let me recap.
The local and international media, led by South Africa’s Sunday Times, have gone to unprecedented lengths to explain the ins and outs of the Mandela paintings scam, which has netted millions for art dealers throughout the civilised world, and even in China.
Advocate George Bizos, who was among the team that so tirelessly worked to keep Mandela out of prison (and indeed off the gallows) at the infamous Rivonia Trial in 1963, now finds himself working tirelessly to defend the same man’s millions falling into the wrong hands after he has been released and become a celebrity. (Michael Jackson should be so lucky.)
Everyone is studiously avoiding telling us who the faux-naïf paintings of picturesque scenes from the former prison island (gruesome reality studiously avoided) should really be attributed to. Nor are they telling us why a formerly jailed and reviled political leader should suddenly have become, in later years, something of a latter-day Picasso, on top of all his other merits and achievements.
Anyway, it’s all in the hands of the courts (or not, as the case may be).
The best that can be said is that the murky and nefarious world of the art industry, which has been creaming off a healthy profit from the best of the world’s creative talent since the days of the pharaohs, the Elgin Marbles, Great Zimbabwe, the carvings of Ife, the Aztec Empire and Andy Warhol (to name but a few), without making much distinction between any of them, has now turned to high-profile world leaders for their high-tech moneymaking gambits in the closed world of the auction markets of London, Paris and New York.
Winston Churchill’s supposed poetical ravings and watercolours set the tone. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is but the latest of a long list of victims to this subtle plague. (And Vincent van Gogh, as a friend reminded me over lunch the other day, barely escaped with his ears intact.)
But, in the best traditions of show business, there will always be more to come. Hence the sudden revelation of these new musical works by the Lama of Lamas and the Pope of Popes, who apparently had a secret creative fling in the late 1980s. It’s like Freddy Mercury and Rudolph Nureyev all over again — except that this time it’s for real.
The Market Theatre’s new supremo Malcolm ”don’t call me Pinky” Purkey has reportedly been negotiating with State Theatre boss Aubrey ”Mehlo Madala” Sekhabi on securing an exclusive South African deal for a second-tier world premier of these exciting works. Lawyers for the Dalai Lama and the late pope have been briefed accordingly. The musicals themselves are being kept close to the chests of the families involved for copyright reasons.
But what are these fascinating musical theatre works about? According to Sunday Times social columnists Gwen Gill and Barry Ronge, they are not about anything. Which is the whole point.
If theatre used to be about the real world, it’s not like that any more. Theatre, and especially theatre with music involved, has no stomach for, for example, the new prince of Monaco’s secret, dusky, illegitimate son, nor for Osama bin Laden and Iraq, or Darfur. Nor, in spite of present appearances, does it have much stomach for Khayelitsha, Langa and Soweto.
The theatre-going world has had its fill of vicarious excitement with Chicago, Evita, Les Miserables, and Miss Saigon. Enough of the real world, already. It’s time to move on. Or so it seems.
And so, by all accounts, these new rock-comedy musicals that are about to hit us between the eyes, attributed to great world leaders who have so far maintained an enigmatic silence about their own creative involvement, are about unnamed religious and political leaders who really never set out to hurt a fly. Buddha is playing the second lead. Brad Pitt is playing the late pope.
All of this, like life, is market-driven. The market defines the medium. If fingers are being wagged at Madiba for having been naive about what the art world was about to do to him, after ignoring him as an icon for so many years in his own lifetime, then how can the fingers be wagging at others in the leaders-turned-marketable-icons industry? Who is really safe? How about Maggie Thatcher does the Sex Pistols?When are we about to hear Bill Clinton’s Negro History of the Jazz Saxophone? When can we expect to read about The Queen on The Music of Freddy Mercury and Queen?
Haai, baba, leave Mandela alone. Leave the Dalai Lama alone. Let sleeping dogs lie doggo in their declining years. Don’t try to wag that particular bone in their face. The art dealers of this world should concentrate on getting real artists to shift real art on to the real market, and leave our icons alone. Or whatever.