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The Director's Experiences 2 – by Styx Mhlanga
They say good theatre is like tennis in that the spectators always look to see how a serve is received,
whereas in bad theatre the serves won't be received...they will be a miss after miss.
Preparations to come up with good theatre are done during the rehearsals of a play. That is where every
actor / actress has to give everything towards developing their role; and when a director stands attentively on the side of
the " fourth wall of the stage" and watch a cast working hard to breathe life into the text of a play, he gets some feedback,
but when one actress or actor who is on stage develops a crash on the director and fails to concentrate on her / his role,
the creative line breaks up and the entire production suffers. Such are some of the challenges facing male directors and male
led theatre groups working with female colleagues.
Sometime last year Amakhosi Theatre won a tender from UNIDO Canada to produce a play that rises awareness
on the dangers of mercury among small scale miners operating in and around Kadoma district. As part of the Theatre's Community
Outreach and Capacity Building Programme, Amakhosi subcontracted a Kadoma based theatre group, Tamuka Performing Arts to produce
the play. A skills training and a play production process which had to see the group benefiting from Amakhosi's expertise
was mapped out. As a result, I was drifted into the project to work with the late veteran artists Mackey Tickeys who unfortunately
became seriously ill and died during the training and research phases of the project. His death was a heavy setback to the
project. Besides, being an experienced acting coach, Mackey knew Kadoma like the back of his hands. He once stayed, worked
and fully participated in the artistic life of the town. I was then left with the task of writing the script and directing
it.
After scuffling through a very bureaucratic writing process where every member of the funding organisation
wanted to see the story told their way, I wrote a play
entitled " Nakai", "the beautiful one or please be nice " in shona. I wanted the panners to
be nice to the environment. We should be good custodians of our environment because we have to see to it that we pass it on
to future generations as we inherited it from those who walked the walk before us. Nakai is also the main character of the
play. She is the centre of the two feuding families in the play. The script of the play Nakai was ably translated into shona
by Bernard Mateo and Stanley Tavengwa.
For quite some time, Kadoma used to be the country's third largest theatre landscape, but in these patchy
times, many artists have deserted theatre and taken jobs elsewhere in order to make sure that there is food on their table.
Those who remain active theatre workers today are artists by conviction and not day-by-day ones. In this field, if you can
not stand the gaff...you are blown off by the wind. Workshop '97 is one such group that had a great impact in the past decade
but like others they came and there are now history. The artists who founded Tamuka Performing Arts have been part of Workshop
'97. They are a rebirth, a part that caught the fire and refused to let go of theatre; and end-up searching for riches working
as makorokozas like most young people in the area. How do they make a living?
Now and then they make a decent living through creating commissioned plays for governmental and non-governmental organisations.
But what makes Tamuka as a group visible in the community is their dances. The group has a powerful predominantly male dance
troupe that recently won first prize in Chibuku Road To Fame Contest. The dance troupe consist mostly of male members because
to find a committed female performer these days is like finding a sea pearl. There are very few in the industry. Tamuka is
not spared from this riddle. Female artists join Tamuka today and tomorrow they have found themselves a boyfriend and that's
the end...they are gone.
Yes, the industry is at times too rough for female artists. No standard lunches, no perfume, no busfare
to and from rehearsals and other genuine gender related problems confronting them. But boy, they are times when female artists
use the exposure that comes with showbiz for off the line motives. Just like this actress who used to forget all her lines
and movements as soon as I walked into the rehearsal room. This used to happen during the first days' rehearsals of "Nakai."
The actress had nice big eyes, a princess-style walk, a good body ( not that I cared ) God knows what was going through my
mind then...I was worried sick and just wanted to save my a.. , bring out the characters and the message of the play, cut
down the budget, meet the production deadline and please the producer who was sniffing down my neck. I had no time for crashes.
As result, I was furious with the actress who kept on messing-up the rehearsal. All I wanted was to deliver a finished product,
get paid, go back home, make sure that bills are paid and my wife and kids have something to eat.
Luckily there was this visiting veteran female actress who had come to watch the rehearsal. She is the
one who saw the problem; and took the young actress aside for a woman to woman talk. Things changed for better after that
talk.
You can be a damn good director but one lesson that I learnt from this incident is that when you are
a male director working with a cast that has young female artists you need assistance from a mature female colleague to help
you bring out the best from young women performers. Gender sensitive issues get on the way at times! I admire Evie Globerman
( my boss at Iluba Experimental Theatre Workshop' 86 ) for being mad at artists who flirt with each other during work- in-
progress. This affect the collaborative process of the group as well as the work at hand, she used to say.
A theatre project with good funding is a good enough motivation for artists. As a director, actors in
most cases give you their best. So apart from a few hiccups, rehearsing "Nakai" with artists from Tamuka was a joy. The guys
were physical fit. They easily dissected, visualised and had an intellectual sense of the script. All I had to do as the director
was help the actors physicalize the play so that what they say is done on stage. The actors compensated for some shortfall
in skills and experience by a rare dedication and commitment to work. The director of the group is young and energetic. He
works hard for the group but lacks that qaulity to delegate those responsibilities he is not good at...for instance, the administrative
aspect of the group such as paperwork. We were rehearsing flat out as from
9 a.m to 5p.m with few stopovers during lunch and refreshments. The end product was great! When the cast presented the test
run show at John Mark Hall for the sponsors and invited guest, I was sweating, sitting tense in my chair watching around for
audience reaction. A giggle, chuckling, a laugh or an applaud gave me an assurance.
When the cast bowed and the curtain came down, the audience went mad. The head of the organisation that
sponsored the play approached me and said he liked what he saw on stage. He told me that they were moments when his hair stood-up
during the performance. A job well done!
It was then time for celebration. We went to Campbell Theatre bar where the delegates, invited
guests and some members of the audience ( minus actors of course because it's felt they had done their job) came together
for a few drinks. It was party time. The sponsor obviously footing most of the bills. Even some over confident... know-it-all
party youth got some free beers that evening.
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Styx Mhlanga -The Director's Experiences
This month I decided to go into the world of Directors and find out what
goes on in their heads as they take a script, interpret it and bring it to life. People usually celebrate the cast, but little
is known of the Director’s world. We share the experiences of Styx Mhlanga who is a renowned Theatre Director.
When the curtain comes down every performing artist can tell whether a show worked or not. Although an audience
might clap hands at the end of a performance this might mean two different things, " The show was great " or," Oh thank God,
we are going home, this nightmare is over!" But one obvious bad sign for any performer is when after a performance he/she
comes out of a changing-room and finds all the audience gone. Deep down every serious actor/actress or director harbours some
form of fear for the first night. This is because no-one knows whether on the premier night the show will work or not.
As a director, I'm having a hectic 2007 theatre season. So far, I have directed four stage productions and stood-up
to face four testing first nights. In the process, I have directed the talents of over thirty artists. My busy schedule kicked
off at the beginning of the year -- January, when I was commissioned by Bulawayo Theatre to direct John Nathan's comedy "Time
Will Tell". In March, I went up to the "City of Gold", Kadoma to work with a locally based theatre group, Tamuka Performing
Arts and directed
"Nakai", a stage production which I also wrote. I was assigned in April by HIFIVE to direct Mandisi Gobodi's
play "No Mo 4 Play". The early week of May 2007 saw me co-directing Amakhosi Theatre's hilarious Greek classic play "Lysistrata".
"No Mo 4 Play" and "Lysistrata" were both taken to HIFA 2007 where they received some standing ovations and good reviews.
As I write, Bheki Ndlovu of S & B Showbiz has commissioned me to direct my fifth play this year, Cont Mhlanga's "Dabulap".
'
The main focus of this monthly series of articles is to look at some of the experiences that I have encountered
directing stage productions this year and this particular month I would like to look at "Time Will Tell" premiered at Bulawayo
Theatre. This production was that theatre's first locally written play in 23 years. Most of the scripts the theatre has been
producing over the years were pantomimes and old classical plays. I was the first black director, as far as anybody could
remember, from the other side of town who had been invited by this white dominated theatre house to direct their main production.
It was for these reasons that I took up the challenge.
During rehearsals, John Nathan's play became a good vehicle of bringing together the multi-racial cast I was
directing. Despite marked difference in social background, there was a nice mixture and interaction between blacks and whites.
The crew was also sweet. We talked about a lot of things before and after each rehearsal -- we discussed family, plays, music,
food, sex, a bit of politics -- and we had some good laughs.
As the rehearsals progressed and the search for characters and the true meaning of the script continued, problems
started to surface. Firstly, it became too obvious that the 70 pages script was too long. There was quite a lot of repetition
and deadwood on the script. I pointed out this to the writer John Nathan and suggested some cuts, but he was very protective
of his work. The script was his baby -- so I backed off. The second problem related to the approach that the veteran white
actors gave to the script. After pegging and blocking each beat and scene I encouraged the actors to go home and start learning
their lines so that it becomes easy to search for the subtext of the play without bothering about lines. The young actors
followed this procedure quite well but the veteran actors had other ideas. They enjoyed working through the play with scripts
in hands. Every time I called for scripts down on a particular scene, they assured me that everything was going to be okay
in a couple of days -- I should give them a little bit more time. I knew we were running out of time and the fear of the first
night was soon going to creep in and actors would soon start panicking. When I again insisted on scripts down, I began to
face a " We have always been doing it like this" attitude. As a new director in the theatre I felt it unwise to force my rehearsal
techniques on these actors. So again, I had to back-off. On the other hand, I was happy with the progress the young actors
had made a couple of days just before premier night. They had lines and movement of each scene mastered. This made their work
easier.
I was told that when we had gone only a few days before the premier night, one of my veteran actors was not
sleeping at all trying to put a 70 page script in her head. She was under so much pressure. Fatigue started to show on her
face at rehearsal.
It is the tradition of Bulawayo Theatre to have a Grannies' Night the day before the premier night. On this
evening, the elderly citizens come to sample up the show. On Grannies' night the stage crew had designed and put up a superb
set. What about actors, did they deliver? The beginning of the first act went on smoothly but disaster started to strike towards
the end of the act and it became worse on the second act. The veteran actors gobbled lines and wobbled all over the stage
trying to remember their lines or listening to the prompter whispering lines offstage. As a result, the pace of the play dragged
and they ending up changing scenes. There were times when I was sitting there watching the show and feeling like there was
someone kicking me in the stomach. My wife beside me kept on saying “Is this not supposed to be a comedy? It's not funny
at all."
We had an after performance talk where we decided to drop the prompter because so many actors were using her
as their crutch. Roger Sale, the stage manager called for "Sink or swim next show." I looked around and saw the face of one
actor turning white with fear and I knew we were in deep trouble.
During the three day run of the production (from 28 February - 2 March 2007) audiences turned up in numbers
to watch the play. Some liked it but others didn't. They say our Good Lord appreciates honesty -- apart from a few good moments
here and there, and the artistic friendship it developed -- the production was rotten. One popular black actor who was in
the show was complaining this other day saying " Styx, that show is always following me every where I go." I'm sure that like
everyone else he wanted to forget the play quickly.
I blame the failure of "Time Will Tell " mainly on bad habits and attitudes. Bulawayo Theatre is by far the
most equipped theatre facility in the city of Bulawayo.
It's high time the administration there starts to take theatre seriously and introduce a full-time approach to their programming.
For how long shall they continue to take theatre as a pastime or hobby? Let's look at it, the veteran actors in " Time Will
Tell " have been working in a very closed drama society for a long time and have acquired over the years some bad habits.
There are set rules in their approach to theatre work that they are no longer willing at all to change -- while out there
the wide world is changing fast.
There is a Sotho proverb that says “You can't stab and destroy
the white stripes of a zebra without also destroying its black stripes." This proverb sums up the state of our performing
arts industry. During the colonial era, the authorities then had an attitude towards black people and their arts. So they
ignored and marginalized the sector. Now 28 years of independence down the line, blacks are doing the same thing: they have
developed an attitude towards their white counterparts who are still grappling to come to terms with their historical attitudes.
It is quite evident that most of the acting talent at Bulawayo
Theatre was nurtured and developed in the period before independence and very little came after the 80's as compared to, "
The talent on the other side of town." A form of marginalization is taking place. We should not be seen doing what those guys
did to us. Bulawayo is a multi-racial society. We need to learn to safeguard the interest of the minority and not always allow
a situation where the majority takes all. People sometimes need to go to theatres, watch television shows and see a good multi-racial
show which we can be proud of. How do we go about this when we ignore what the other sector is doing and harbour negative
attitudes towards people on " the other side of town?".
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