On February 9 1955, Johannesburg’s colourful suburb of Sophiatown was demolished, and people were trucked to Meadowlands. Fifty years later, Sophiatown has been resurrected — and resurrected and resurrected — in many forms.
Market Theatre artistic director Malcolm Purkey contributes to the 50th anniversary of the forced removals with a resurrection of his 1986 work. The restaging of Sophiatown also marks the 20th anniversary of the play that made the era and the location known around the world.
The play is set in a shebeen run by Mama Rita (Nandi Nyembe). Like all shebeens in any township, this one doubles as a home to a family. Unlike the movie Drum, the play is set in a fictitious family. But the play is inspired by real historical events that took place in what was once regarded as South Africa’s Harlem. On a normal day in Sophiatown, a Yeoville-born, Jewish teenage girl called Ruth (Ashley Harvey) knocks on the door of Mama Rita’s home carying a suitcase.
It turns out she is responding to an advert placed in Drum magazine by Jakes (Siyabonga Twala), a writer seeking a white person to come and stay with a family in Sophiatown. In the ramshackle township, Ruth will open her eyes and mind to the broader South African society. Mama Rita’s home becomes a cultural, religious and linguistic melting pot. At first she is shocked to hear that she is going to share a room. She offers to pay and she is given her own space. In no time at all, she learns a smattering of tsotsitaal, the lingo of the neighbourhood. In the course of her integration, Ruth proves her worth, even helping the streetwise youngster Lali (Nobulani Dangazele) with schoolwork.
Then there are the gangsters: Mingus (Arthur Molepo), a bloke with expensive tastes, is the leader of the Americans gang. Molepo is the only member of the original 1986 cast. As a mature actor he is able to bring depth to the role of a typical 1950s gangster who lives large and is always on the run from the cops. Mingus’s partner, Princess (Lucia Mthiyane), is a typical gangster’s girlfriend with a taste for expensive gifts, who seems not to care how these gifts have been obtained. Fahfee (Sello Sebotsane) is a ‘congressman†in touch with all that is happening in the city and its peripheries.
The choice of characters made in the original workshop, two decades ago, has endured. For those of us who were not around to witness the cultural renaissance that took place, some deeper insight is given beyond the stock clichés we are fed about Sophiatown myths. There is the pain of the forced removals offset by a spirit of resistance. This is very characteristic of the 1980s, a decade of hot resistance, as apartheid crumbled.
Sophiatown also reminds us about other sad elements of the country’s history, including the racial classifications, which turned blacks into coloureds and visa versa.
After watching the play, one is left wondering why film director Zola Maseko did not cast the superb Siyabonga Twala as Mr Drum in his award-winning flick. The guy handles the role of journalist with dignity and flair.
Ultimately, Sophiatown lives up to its promise. It is a remarkable story about human survival. The historical events have been commemorated in recent documentaries and in feature film. Unlike myself, it would seem there are many who are not tired of the same old story, of flamboyant gangsters, alcoholic yet talented Drum journalists, forced removals, tsotsitaal and marabi music. It’s a beautiful story, but a tired one too. How about some culture tracking the lives of those who settled in Meadowlands for a change?
Sophiatown is on at the Market Theatre until October 23. Sabata-mpho Mokae is a literary critic for Kaya FM