Take a conspiracy of clowns, a firebug and a tinder-dry Cape Town and you have the ingredients for Touch Wood, an incendiary piece of environmental theatre based on the advent of fires that ravaged the Mother City in the summer of 2000.
The fire-fighting clowns are led by Rob Murray, Nhlanhla Mavundla and Tanya Surtees, who in 2000 founded a physical performance and educational theatre company with a rather unusual name, From the Hip: Khulumakahle.
The company was engaged this year by the Community Arts Project (CAP) in Cape Town to run its inaugural Professional Development Programme (PDP), an initiative designed to empower young and previously disadvantaged theatre practitioners for entry into the theatre industry.
Touch Wood grew out of the PDP, as did the founding vision of From the Hip: Khulumakahle, which is ‘to reinvigorate South African theatre by creating … productions and education programmes that reflect the stories … of the country and her many cultures”.
A multilingual physical theatre piece, Touch Wood is one such story. Its starting point lies in the facts, myths, allegations, rumours, accusations, recriminations and interrogations that surrounded the fires on the peninsula three years ago.
Proceeding from there, it explores the status of fire as protector and destroyer, as recounted in various world mythologies. The result is a fast-paced comedy that combines the environmental mime style of Mavundla with the clowning mime style of Murray.
Under the guidance of From the Hip’s professionals, six CAP learners have been rehearsing to take part in Touch Wood.
Learners are paid for both rehearsals and performances of the play. As part of their broader development programme they attend classes in contemporary movement, African dance, physical performance, environmental mime, theatre-making skills, vocal training, basic arts, and theatre management and administration.
When Murray went looking for theatres to stage Touch Wood, he found them scarce. But that shortage has worked wonderfully for the play, which found its home at the Kraal Theatre in Kommetjie, where it will also form part of the Kommetjie Festival. Kommetjie was the epicentre of the fires in 2000.
‘There’s also the bonus of it not being a proscenium arch theatre, it is half open-air, half closed,” says Murray. ‘It’s in the centre of the Two Oceans Craft and Culture Centre, with a thatched roof, dirt floor … one that suits the work very well. It reminds me of a circus ring with seating in nearly a full circle around the ‘stage’ — a great place to bring out the clowns!”
Of the script, Murray says: ‘We explored and developed the idea of a bunch of clowns sent into ground zero, as it were. We’ve done a lot of research in terms of collecting personal stories about the fire, visiting the affected areas, studying the plant and animal species, and learning about the environmental issues at stake. Ukuvuka: Operation Firestop has been very helpful and generous in sharing information.
‘We’ve uncovered an interesting angle on foreign interest in Cape Town and how some locals see foreigners as an invasive species — not giving anything to the communities they buy land or houses in but, rather, sucking the resources dry — a form of xenophobia, I guess. Another question that has arisen is, if you are forced to evacuate your home because of impending disaster, what would you take with you?”
Touch Wood is designed to be performed both indoors and out with a minimal reliance on props that are imaginatively and economically used, and is easy and inexpensive to tour, making it accessible to a wide range of audiences. All of which points to its potential to continue as an environmental education piece beyond its Kommetjie run.
The details
Touch Wood plays on December 5 and 6, and from December 9 to 13 at the Kraal Theatre, Two Oceans Craft and Culture Centre, corner of Kommetjie and Chasmay roads, Kommetjie, Cape Town.
All performances are at 6pm. Touch Wood is supported by the National Arts Council and the Arts and Culture Trust.
For bookings call Sholto Morgan on Tel: 073 425 7358 or visit [email protected]