Arts fest is duct-tape for our broken times

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These are anxious and broken times. An epoch when democracies are failing people, who are failing each other, as we withdraw further into personal digital sarcophaguses.

Fascism and populism are surging, while the left dithers. Inequality is untrammelled in South Africa and an entire generation of children who never knew apartheid appear set never to know human dignity, equality, a healthy living environment or an education, which would enable them to fulfil their human potential. 

That much was clear in Makhanda during the 10 days of the National Arts Festival which concluded on 2 July. It was obvious on the streets, where beggars and car guards clamoured around punters more than usual and the material dysfunction was plain to see. And on the stage and in galleries, where artists explored the past, and grappled with the present, to find solutions and provocations for the future.

That our unreconciled past poisons the water of our present was clear in Droomwerk, a play written by Pieter Odendaal, which explores the secret mixed-race history of his family, whose bloodline includes that of a slave, Diana of Madagascar. 

A feverish production accentuated by on-point sound design and composition by Jannous Aukema, Droomwerk exposes the “original lie” of South Africa’s democracy — we are not a “Rainbow Nation” burnished by listening and negotiating. Instead, we are a country where truth is never reconciled and secrets and skeletons are conveniently buried in silence.

There is a violence in that silence. One that causes intergenerational haunting as the young, strung-out Odendaal observes while in a psychiatric hospital: “The black dog won’t let me go.” 

For South Africans, this is as much the black dog of all the Truth and Reconciliation Commission cases that were deemed prosecutable but never were, as it is about the quiet continuation of the socio-economic apartheid reality, under which the impoverishment of black people has only worsened.

The play ‘Text Me When You Arrive’

Our histories, whether destroyed, omitted or revised to fit colonial and apartheid historiographies, was the focus for three of the Standard Bank Young Artists: Msaki (for music), Koleka Putuma (for poetry) and Lady Skollie (visual arts).

Both Msaki, who performed a series of concerts, and Putuma made forays into the fine art gallery space where they explored indigenous knowledge, plants and rituals to reinsert marginalised or forgotten histories into the present. This is a phenomenon that has gained momentum in decolonial and environmental spheres.

Lady Skollie’s Groot Gat exhibition at the Gallery in the Round addressed the erasure of Bushman paintings and consequent “holes” in history — personal and national — through a series of drawings. Three of these drawings were also projected onto a “cave” in the gallery space, releasing them into a new sense of life. 

Beautifully rendered, the exhibition was an evocation of the supernatural, of motherhood (of knowledge, history and future generations), folklore and a culture too easily dismissed as primitive.

According to the artist’s statement the works were “deeply inspired” by the Bushman artist Coex’ae Qgam or Dada: “Qgam’s paintings were a powerful expression of his people’s connection to the land, their spiritual beliefs, and their daily lives.”

From the past and into the present … with a shudder and Text Me When You Arrive. Written and performed by Aaliyah Matintela, Thulisile Nduvane and Sibahle Mangena, the play is an excoriating take-down of South African men and the society that produces abusers and murderers of women. 

The actors went through a list of things women need to do every day to avoid being raped. These included “embracing the cat-calling when you walk down the streets of Mzansi”, “never say no when he wants it” and “never leave your drink unattended” when you are in a bar or club.

The irony and satire was searing as the trio weaved banal yet perilous everyday experiences, such as taking taxis to work and being hit on by passers-by and drivers or going to a government clinic for the morning-after pill only to encounter sanctimonious conservatism, to expose the country’s entrenched rape culture.

Matintela, Nduyane and Mangena performed formidably, especially when capturing the leery swagger and menace of men on the streets, whether in Joburg or Lephalale.

All three performers were energetic but maintained perfect timing to ensure the satirical punches in the script landed. People laughed without losing sight of the abhorrent reality of the subject matter. The acting was pitch-perfect.

For the reasons behind our failures to transform men who break women, the unequal economic landscape, our traumatised national psyche, land ownership, the imaginations and dreams of South Africans and even just to provide the basics such as running water and electricity to people, look no further than the play Khongolose Khommanding Khomissars (KKK).

KKK is a political satire written by 2020 Standard Bank Young Artist for Theatre, Jefferson Bobs Tshabalala and directed by The Theatre Duo (the 2023 Standard Bank Young Artists for Theatre Billy Langa and Mahlatsi Mokgonyana).

The hilarious script uses wordplay, puns and rhyming couplets that are almost Shakespearean in their farcical tragedy, to poke fun at the political elite’s penchant for opaque, obsequious, dogmatic and bombastic language that is more long-winded than one of Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe’s farts during a study group on renewables.

The premise is simple. Three members of a political party that was “the rain that washed away the hail of subjugation to usher in the new Rainbow Nation” (yes, a thinly veiled reference to the governing ANC) are scrambling to ensure an overzealous investigator does not expose their syphoning of millions from a national government department. 

Through the tried and tested method of “Bribe. Blackmail. Threaten”, the trio co-opt a young upstart, Mr Hako, into their lives of “just a little bit more” fine whiskey, overseas travel and opulent consumerism.

As Mr Nxumalo, the head kleptocrat (“Honourable Chairperson/ Distinguished Head of Operations/ Leader of Leaders/ Leader of Leaders Leading the Leadership/ Top Mtshana wabaShana etc”) observes: “Everyone has a price, Mr Hoko, a secret to hide, or a debt to settle.”

The piece was side-splittingly funny but a razor-sharp reminder of how easily and quickly corruption can be normalised in society and how easily people can be turned. 

Corruption in South Africa is ubiquitous, from unionist teachers selling positions at schools to hospital clerks controlling nursing appointments in government facilities. 

As described by former deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke and constitutional court justice Edwin Cameron in their minority dissent in the apex court’s first Glenister judgment, “corruption in the polity corrodes the rights to equality, human dignity, freedom, security of the person and various socio-economic rights”. These are being starkly felt by the majority of South Africa’s citizens.

But as jazz drummer Kesivan Naidoo observed during a roaring big band performance (during which he punished the drums as per usual) to close the Jazz Festival (which has had to be especially nimble following a second year without sponsorship from Standard Bank — an achingly sad decision for audiences): “We are all in this together.” 

A point to remember when the young protagonist in The King of Broken Things, a wondrous, unfiltered savant inventor-restorer yet to reach teenagehood reflects on a sentiment heard on the radio: “We can’t fix the country, it’s broken. 

“Why would one say that? The land is still here. The people are still here,” observes the young boy who, mindful of kasa-obake (Japanese folklore about old umbrellas returning as ghosts after a century), believes it is worth it to fix things and to carry on, especially “with the scars to show what we have been through”. 

The King of Broken Things, which won a Gold Ovation Award at the festival, takes a poignant approach to being broken in a one-hander full of wonderment. Material things, metaphorical hearts, a discarded flask which is transformed into a vase and a magical cape made with “light” words (such as “believe” and “dream”) are just some of the things the young protagonist considers as he longs for a father he hopes will return. 

Cara Roberts delivered a gripping performance as the pre-teen boy in a production that was carefully staged, and smartly written by director Michael Taylor-Broderick.   

Certainly, life is never simple. And people are full of contradictions and hypocrisies. This was made plain in the consummate staging and performance of Hold Still, winner of the Fleur du Cap Best New SA Script and Best Actress awards. 

A play written by Nadia Davids and directed by Jay Pather, it focuses on the choices a London couple have to make when their teenage son harbours a Pakistani friend who the courts have decided must be returned home.

Colour coded: The play ‘Droomwerk’ in which writer Pieter Odendaal analyses the secret mixed-race history of his family. Photo: Xolani Tulumani

Ben (Andrew Buckland) is a journalist whose grandfather escaped the Nazi concentration camps; Rosa (Mwenya Kabwe) is the daughter of South Africans exiled during apartheid. The couple pride themselves on their leftwing credentials but soon fractures start to appear in their relationship and who they purport to be. 

Do they pay the young boy to disappear or do they turn him in with “faith in the system” that he will be taken care of?

The latter “optimism” in the system is denounced by the young Pakistani, Imraan (Tailyn Ramsamy) as “your privilege”. Later, when he confronts them about their hypocrisies, the couple recount the kindness they have shown him over the years, even paying for his new sneakers and considering him “part of the family”. 

“You have had nothing but kindness from us,” they bleat. “That is the lie,” Imraan observes. “The kindness.”

There was a blur of excellence over the festival. The choreographer and dancer Gregory Maqoma swirling and floating on the NAF stage in Exit/Exist for what is likely to be the last time. Swiss artist Simon Senn’s thought-provoking and sensitive reflection on the use (and ethics) of the 3D rendering of humans, available for sale online, in what was part-lecture, part augmented-reality experience and part dance performance.

However, there were duds too. 

Sitting in the Village Green on Sunday afternoon, the inevitability of the end of the National Arts Festival was writ large on chalkboards of the food outlets. One by one, menu items such as the local Rotary Club’s famous kudu burger were struck out. No longer available. Nothing more to sell. Not until next year.

It felt much like humankind’s menu for the future: climate change dead- lines passed and crossed out; politi- cal options diminishing like pizza choices; another mining-affected community’s agency crossed off by a state in cahoots with traditional authorities and multinationals… 

What is to be done? A nagging question. Maybe part of that answer can be found in the anxiety of the young protagonist in The King of Broken Things who is afraid to grow up and lose his sense of awe about the world: “I am worried that things will look different when I am older and I wouldn’t recognise them.” 

Kesivan Naidoo’s Big Band will perform at the Star Theatre in Cape Town tonight at 7.30pm and in Johannesburg at the Market Theatre on 8 July at 7pm. Tickets at Quicket.