Ramolao Makhene has died, and I am shattered. He was a great actor and a great friend, but more that that, he was like my older brother; and this in a time in South Africa where such special intimacy between black and white was criminalised. I knew him for almost 30 years and now he is gone. I am shattered and desperate. I cannot believe that we will never work together again.
Ramolao and I shared a passionate love of the theatre. From the first moment I saw him performing in the Workshop 71 production of Crossroads, I was mesmerised. He seemed to radiate an enormous warmth and goodwill, even when the material dealt with the harshest truths of apartheid. This goodwill came from the centre of his being.
When Workshop 71 closed, with most of its members in exile, he became a founding member of Junction Avenue Theatre Company. He was a great improviser and character actor, and contributed significantly to the creation of plays such as Randlords and Rotgut, Marabi, Security, Sophiatown, Tooth and Nail and Love, Crime and Johannesburg.
Always able to find the dramatic heart of the scene, Ramolao was impatient with theory and university talk. He had a real feel for people’s theatre. In the extensive workshops for Randlords and Rotgut, for example, in the old Nunnery Theatre, he once became so frustrated with the Wits students he was working with, he grabbed an old school bell that was lying around and rang it ferociously, shouting in that booming voice of his: “Summarise! Summarise!” It sounds like an odd story to remember, but it set a tone for our future workshops: keep the story at the centre, work on the drama, keep the squabbling and theorising at the side. Above all, never let apartheid divide us or defeat us.
From 1978 to 1999, we created original South African theatre. I would say he found his mature voice in Sophiatown, creating the great character of Mr Fahfee in the six months of research and workshops that contributed to that play. Mr Fahfee brought the news from the streets of struggle to the various households. He also brought the dreams and the related numbers for that week’s bet.
Ramolao had a excellent sense of timing, first creating brilliant lines and then delivering them brilliantly. The topic in Sophiatown in a particular moment of the play was prayer. In keeping with the themes of cultural clash, multiculturalism and diversity, which became so central to our work, the household was discussing the different prayers that Jews and Christians, blacks and whites use to connect to their gods. With that great face of his, and that charming smile, Ramolao, deeply emerged in his role, turned to the audience and announced his chosen prayer for the night: “Ah, please God, don’t make me too drunk tonight, amen!” It brought the house down at every performance.
In fact, though he liked his beer, Ramolao was not really a drinker in the destructive sense: an actor’s fate he managed to avoid. He was a sober rock at the heart of Junction Avenue Theatre Company, helping to keep this non-racial company together through the most trying times. It was not always difficult and sometimes the rewards were great. Ramolao and the company had great times touring internationally with Sophiatown, and the relationships in Junction Avenue just became stronger. We had to find a way, if we wanted to keep the theatre-making going.
One of the offshoots of Junction Avenue Theatre Company was the film collective Free Film Makers. Ramolao became a founding member, though he was much more comfortable in front of the camera than behind it. He helped to make one very strange and remarkable film, though: a unique view of the streets of Zurich. (We played Sophiatown at the Zurich Festival.) Rats, hard bread and hobos found their way into this film, all detected in the otherwise pristine streets. Called When I Eat Chocolate, I Think of You, its title is derived from a comment from a young Swiss woman who was rather enamoured with Ramolao. The tours were full of young and beautiful women and Ramolao was clearly very, very attractive.
He had a charm and grace that did not always serve him so well. In the Athol Fugard play Master Harold and the Boys, Ramolao played Willy. In the ballroom-dancing sequences, Willy was not supposed to be a good dancer, but Ramolao couldn’t help himself. He floated on that stage with his customary charm, thus not really fully conquering that aspect of the role at all!
The late Eighties presented their own challenges, and Ramolao and I became founding members of the Performing Arts Workers Equity. For many years he was its president. He was not really such a good politician, sometimes mistaking bluster for real authority or power, but nevertheless he remained a well-liked leader and unionist.
Ramolao became a household name in South Africa when he was cast in the television drama Soul City. In the series his character died of high blood pressure. Or perhaps he fell off the roof. I can’t quite remember. In real life, liver cancer took Ramolao from us, and we are desperately the poorer for his absence. I am absolutely unable to believe he is gone. In fact, I declare that he is still with us. Ramolao has made such a strong impression on so many of us; he will live in South African theatre for as long as there is a history.
Hamba kahle, Ramolao, my theatre comrade.
Ramolao Makhene, born December 29 1947, died July 13 2003