Being attracted to Magnet Theatre pays off
TWO productions by emerging theatre-makers Lwanda Sindaphi and Nwabisa Plaatjie will see consecutive runs at the Baxter Flipside from next week.
It’s also part of a Baxter initiative to host and showcase emerging talent on a professional stage and give it that final leg up.
Plaatjie and Sindaphi have come through the ranks of community theatre training and are creating potentially seminal work in their shows. Kudu, currently running until March 10 at the Baxter, and 23 Years A Month and 7 Days, which opens on March 13, will be showcased at the 2018 Baxter Zabalaza Theatre Festival.
Kudu and 23 Years were written in 2016, when the artists were part of a theatre-making internship at Magnet Theatre.
Alongside trainee actors from Magnet’s full-time training and job creation programme and under the mentorship of seasoned theatre-makers, educators and Magnet directors, Mark Fleishman and Jennie Reznek, Sindaphi and Plaatjie excelled.
“The Platform for Special Talent, made possible through funding from the City of Cape Town, emerged from a need to bridge the gap between opportunities for young, new theatre-makers and for well-known established ones.
“The aim is to develop and sustain theatre by identifying talented theatre practitioners and provide them with a platform to improve and expose their artistic portfolio to a greater audience… designed to enrich their experience and skills as they build viable careers in the performing and creative arts environments,” said the Baxter’s marketing manager, Fahiem Stellenboom.
Sindaphi’s futuristic Kudu is set in 2030, a time when the Eastern Cape is ruled by the AmaXhosa nation. Three Khoi descendants and their ageing cow migrate to the area to reclaim what they believe to be their land after hearing stories of the killing of a Khoi chief Ndoda in a land dispute.
“Kudu is about people fighting to be acknowledged and about reclamation. Reclaiming land and language, customs and culture, and spirituality,” says Sindaphi.
Sindaphi, from the Eastern Cape, is a founder member of the Lingua Franca Spoken Word Movement based in Delft, where he lives.
Apart from Magnet Theatre, he trained at New Africa Theatre Academy and was the winner in 2013 as Best Director award at the Zabalaza Festival. He lauds the Magnet programme for allowing students to work in a nurturing environment.
“It provided us with the opportunity to work freely, without the restraints of financial difficulties. One could answer to and explore one’s true creative dreams and impulses, rather than settle for watered-down versions,” he said.
The same cast of eight who appear in Kudu will step onto the stage for Plaatjie’s 23 Years, a Month and 7 Days.
In the play, Plaatjie deals with the tricky issues of women who live in environments that are potential hotbeds of strife.
“While the characters are entirely fictional, everything else is true,” says the young playwright.
Using storytelling and physical theatre, Plaatjie says the play is set in Potter’s Field, a poverty-stricken area, against the background of the 2015 student uprisings.
Nontyatyambo, the lead character, is at odds with her position in society. “Through her,” says Plaatjie, “I am trying to recognise the individual and her voice.”
“I was dealing with themes of migration, but I did not want to enforce and limit myself to the stereotype of the ‘poor black’ from rural areas who goes to the city. I created Potter’s Field as a place that reflects the struggles that are also present in places outside of rural areas,” says Plaatjie.
“I also wanted to create a work that has a female voice that is not necessarily revolutionary; that of the student amid the protest but not protesting. So, the subject is not a hero but rather her presence and experiences as an ordinary person.”
Plaatjie says the play is a reflection on how she found her life. In its message, the play reaches out to those who were involved in the 2015 student uprising and shows there were individuals who were not vocal in their protest but have a need to be recognised.
“In a way I am looking at the invisibility of people who are still experiencing the emotions of what happened then. I am looking at erasure,” she says.
Plaatjie, 25, has already notched up an impressive list of accolades – she’s the recipient of Theatre Arts Admin Collective’s Emerging Theatre Director’s Bursary as well as the first recipient of Baxter Theatre’s PlayLab residency programme.
She’s also a Fleur du Cap nominee, for Best New Director last year.
Graduating from UCT with a BA honours in Theatre and Performance, 23 Years is her first play as “a professional” and is also her response to the student protests that flared up in her graduation year.
● Kudu runs at the Baxter Theatre Flipside until March 10 at 7.30pm nightly with morning performances on March 2, 6 and 8 at 11am and a Saturday matinée on March 3 at 2pm.
● 23 Years, A Month and 7 Days runs at the Baxter Theatre Flipside from March 13 until March 24 at 7.30pm with morning performances on March 20 and 22 March at 11am and a Saturday matinée at 2pm.
The cast for both productions is Beviol Swarts, Emmanuel Ntsamba, Livie Ncanywa, Luthando Mvandaba, Lwando Magwaca, Natasha Gana, Inge Isaacs and Zizipho Ouluba. Design is by Craig Leo and choreography for Kudu, by Jennie Reznek. Bookings for both shows are through Webtickets.