Impressions of contemporary South Africa through the theatre of the National Arts Festival 2014

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Protest (Photo: https://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/protest/)

 

The fists are raised in defiance. The faces are scarred with anger. The body language of the performers declares "Enough!".

This could be a scene from an ’80s anti–apartheid play. But this is 2014, a year in which we mark 20 years of democracy, and the scene is from Protest, a play by Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom, resident playwright/director at the state–subsidised State Theatre, the theatre closest to the seat of government in Pretoria.

The production – according to the festival programme – "celebrates the right to protest and to be heard", but it does more than that, exploring the links between factionalism, corruption and the pursuit of power in the ruling party on the one hand and poor service delivery on the other, while also encouraging communities to affirm and stand up for their interests.

Marikana – The Musical (Photo: https://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/protest/)

 

As if a sibling production, the State Theatre’s Marikana – The Musical, directed by its artistic director, Aubrey Sekhabi, portrays one of the biggest indictments on our fledgling democracy and the ANC government: the massacre of 34 striking miners whose constitutional "right to protest and be heard" was violently suppressed by the South African police in August 2012.

The National Arts Festival celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of South Africa as an inclusive, democratic country – a point made at the opening of the festival by the minister of arts and culture, Nathi Mthethwa, who – ironically – happened to be the minister responsible for the police force that killed the miners as well as other protestors on the streets, and as depicted in Grootboom’s Protest.

In his speech, Mthethwa affirmed the constitutional right of artists to freedom of expression, and yet we know from some of his initial interviews that he does not support "derogatory art" such as Brett Murray’s The Spear, in which the artist depicts President Zuma in a Lenin–like pose, with his genitals exposed. This painting was part of Murray’s exhibition Hail to the Thief 2, in which he satirically berates the ANC for selling out its liberation values and ideals. Male genitals have long been associated in art with metaphorical expressions of rape and pillage, an appropriate metaphor for the rape and pillage of the public purse to renovate Zuma’s personal home at Nkandla.

It is in practising the right to freedom of expression that artists – and others in our society – will constantly encounter the efforts of politicians to proscribe or limit this right through a range of means, such as labelling critics as "racists" or "counter–revolutionaries", using "culture" and "cultural differences" as reasons to intimidate free expression, withdrawing public funding from critical entities, and even using legislation such as the Protection of Information Act.

For this reason it was encouraging to note that the National Arts Festival introduced the Adelaide Tambo Award for Human Rights in the Arts "to honour an artist or company whose work on the Fringe programme embodies Adelaide Tambo’s passion for the arts and her deep commitment to human rights". In its inaugural year this award went to two one–person shows, Cold Case: Revisiting Dulcie September (September was the ANC activist who was assassinated in Paris in 1988) and the Bram Fischer Waltz by Harry Kalmer. This was a politically safe allocation of the award, for it honoured two people associated with the ANC and who were victims of the apartheid regime, rather than celebrate or honour artists whose work today "embodies … Adelaide Tambo’s … deep commitment to human rights".

Unlike recent years, when the work on the Fringe was generally politically tame, this year’s festival had works such as these:

  • Corner Madiba and Nelson Mandela, in which the company critically questions what freedom means today
  • The Man in the Green Jacket, which also references the Marikana massacre and which, in the tradition of protest theatre of the ’80s, unequivocally calls on the audience to do something at the end of the play
  • the resuscitation of Zakes Mda’s 1982 play Mother of All Eating, which castigates corruption in the civil service
  • iSystem, an Artscape production that highlights corruption in the police force.

iSystem (Photo: https://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/protest/)

 

Even a piece of family theatre, The Baobab, picks up on the theme of corrupting community leaders in order for "development" to take place that devastates the environment.

While the Adelaide Tambo Award–winning productions are certainly sound pieces of theatre telling important stories about our past, it is productions like the ones above that embody freedom of creative expression now, and which speak truth to power about human rights in contemporary South Africa.

In a year that marks 40 years of the festival, but more importantly, 20 years of democracy, one might have expected more productions that celebrated the achievements of the last two decades, a kind of "happy clappy, rainbow nation" theatre. There was at least one Fringe production that might have fitted into this category, but it had been cancelled soon after it opened. The writer/director of Heita Daa!,Dan Seroba, was quoted in the festival newspaper as saying that they returned home after only three people attended their opening show. The article states that "although the play acknowledges the inequalities in South African society, he (the writer/director) chose to include achievements made by the democratic government because people need to celebrate democracy". Seroba said "the fact that we can speak about the government corruption is an achievement in itself."

In the pre–democracy era there was significantly greater censorship than what prevails now: theatre productions were banned if they were deemed "undesirable" by the apartheid regime. However, this did not stop theatre–makers from making theatre that was heavily critical of the system at the time, so that being able to speak about government corruption today is hardly an achievement of democracy. Theatre–makers – and other artists – were more than happy to express their sentiments about apartheid despite the potential consequences, so that one would have expected artists to sustain this tradition. If anything, though, "democracy" has resulted in a quietening of the artistic pen and tongue, with self–censorship being more in evidence over the past two decades than robust freedom of creative expression.

If one were to see a show in all seven time slots for the full 11 days of the Festival (77 shows), one would still not have seen all 109 dramas on the Fringe, let alone the 67 comedies, 17 student productions and 36 cabaret/music theatre events. And then there are the 37 plays on the Main Festival! Accordingly, it’s impossible to provide an overview of the theatre at the National Arts Festival with its more than 250 productions.

However, the festival generally, and the collection and range of theatre productions specifically, are themselves metaphors for the state of contemporary South Africa.

Graffiti sprawled across a wall screamed, "The Festival is for the rich", provoking dismissive responses from some artists and organisers who point to a study conducted by Rhodes University’s Department of Economics that shows that in 2013 the festival contributed R349 million to the GDP of the Eastern Cape, and R90 million to the GDP of Grahamstown. Yet Grahamstown has an unemployment rate in excess of 70%, and while the festival may create seasonal "work opportunities" for some, it does not catalyse sustainable jobs that address the city’s major challenge which is to provide work for its citizens.

Given the nature of festivals, the creation of scores of sustainable jobs is an unfair burden to place on the festival, but in the context of Grahamstown it is easy to see why many of the local inhabitants would resent the festival as one that does not serve their interests, and is perceived to be a playground of and for the rich.

The National Arts Festival, though, has some of the cheapest tickets available out of existing festivals, with audiences being able to purchase tickets for Fringe productions for as little as R30; and the first shows of numerous productions are open to audiences for free. While the festival organisers are sensitive to the local conditions, they are confronted by the challenge of presenting a world–class event serving the arts nationally on an annual basis, while being rooted in a city with structural problems related to inequality, poverty and joblessness that politicians and others in more strategic positions have been unable to resolve.

Within the festival itself there is a divide between the Main Programme and the Fringe. Productions that take place on the Main are generally selected or curated by the festival’s artistic director. The productions are heavily subsidised by the festival, and the costs of participation by the companies – transport, accommodation, fees, etc – are covered by the festival. With the limited number of productions, audiences are generally assured of their reasonable quality and so are more inclined to book for these shows, which are also available at a third of the price of an average ticket price at an Afrikaans festival such as the Absa KKNK or Clover Aardklop Festival.

Undone (Photo: https://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/protest/)

Fringe productions, on the other hand, pay a registration fee, a venue hiring fee and a percentage of the box office income to the festival. Fringe productions are responsible for all their production costs, as well as transport, accommodation, fees and per diems for their performers. With more than 250 productions for punters to choose from, Fringe productions are under great pressure to attract an audience, and few productions cover their costs, let alone generate a profit. They compete with Main productions at the same ticket prices, and struggle to get decent coverage in Cue, the festival newspaper which helps to facilitate word–of–mouth advertising, the key means of marketing work at the festival.

While festival organisers celebrate the event as a democratic space in which any artist and company has the opportunity to present their work, the reality is that the few selected for the Main programme are in a significantly better position than the hundreds on the Fringe, representing the disparities and inequalities within South African society.

Furthermore, on the Fringe itself, there are significant differences between productions. Some have excellent brands associated with their work, well–established in the minds of punters; others struggle with productions that have unknown writers, directors and actors – key items to attract audiences to new work at festivals.

There are also differences in technique and expertise, so that there are highly skilled performers on the one hand, with excellently crafted work, while others – generally with raw, but untrained, talent – are less able to present their work effectively. Differences in resources also mean that production values vary substantially, as do the respective means to market productions.

It is not surprising for Fringe productions to have an average audience of 10 or fewer, with many of these productions losing money and being unable to pay actors from the box office income.

There is a final, further divide, and it is related to language. Nearly 60% of the Fringe drama productions are performed in English and another language, or in languages other than English. Only 40% of Fringe drama productions advertise themselves as English only. Historically, the audience for the National Arts Festival is white and English. While the audience demographics are changing significantly, it is still white, English speakers who comprise the major portion of the festival’s market, thus placing English productions in a better position than their other–language or multi–language counterparts.

Interestingly, of the 67 comedy productions, 60 – or nearly 90% – are in English only, a reflection of the fact that most black companies and theatre–makers are exploring their respective worlds through drama rather than comedy. There is a large and young market for comedy, for lighter work, so that black companies are less likely to attract markets with their heavier subjects than their white counterparts at the festival.

This year a production originally produced in Afrikaans as Ont by Wessel Pretorius was translated into English as Undone and went on to win the Golden Ovation Award, the highest award for theatre on the Fringe. After the initial announcement of the award (awards are announced daily, and then the Golden and Silver awards are made on the final day out of those that received Ovation awards during the Festival), Undone's ticket sales improved.

macbeth.slapeloos (Photo: https://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/protest/)

 

However, this was not the case with Hol by Nicola Hanekom who performed her original piece in Afrikaans in 2012, won an Ovation award and then the Golden Ovation Award, but struggled to get audiences, her award notwithstanding. This year the festival boasted a few Afrikaans productions in macbeth.slapeloos, and Giftig, others in English and Afrikaans, like Ek sien ’n man and Nancy, and even a few in Afrikaans and another indigenous language, such as Simunye and Impethuko. These works would do better commercially if they were in English, given the nature of the festival’s primary audiences.

The festival, then, reflects the extent to which class, access to resources and expertise, language, experience of how "the system" works, networks and audiences or markets play their respective roles in determining what may be successful – both commercially and artistically – at the festival.

Whether it is the role of the festival to intervene in ways that will correct such divisions or whether it should simply be a mirror to the theatre industry and of South African society is moot; what is clear, though, is that the festival is not simply a democratic space where all artists may find a space to exercise their constitutional right to freedom of expression. The festival reflects the class, language and other divisions that impact both directly and indirectly on the extent to which artists may in fact enjoy and exercise this right, with some being in a much better position to exercise and benefit from this right.

Marikana – the Musical and Protest, both state–subsidised productions that employ all–black casts and use English as well as indigenous languages, are pointers towards the role that public funding can and should play in shifting the discourse within and the discourse of theatre.

The success of Afrikaans theatre – translated into English – at the festival, as well as the use of many languages in one production, also point to the possibilities for theatre (both for the stories they can tell and for the quality and creativity with which they tell them) should greater collaboration between theatre–makers who speak different languages occur.

 

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