A TRUE LEGEND OF HER CRAFT
AT 63, actress Thembi MtshaliJones, who is best known for her role as a shebeen queen in Stokvel, doesn ’ t look a day over 50.
With a pair of black sunglasses carefully placed on her curly braids and a red scarf wrapped around her neck, the soft-spoken Mtshali-Jones displays the spirited antics of a 20-something-year-old.
She speaks of her work with great passion.
We meet a few days before her one-woman play, Mother to Mother, that premièred at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg this week. Although she is not a new face to theatre, Mtshali-Jones describes herself as “shy ”.
When she broke into show business in the 1970s her father was initially doubtful; “You can hardly speak to us here at home, who would pay money to see you?”, recalls Mtshali-Jones.
The word shy is in sharp contrast to the dynamic life she has lived. She has transformed herself from the little girl who once herded cattle in Sabhoza, a remote village, in KwaZulu-Natal, into a globe-trotting actress, who has travelled to cities such as London and New York.
She broke one of the rules of her rural upbringing by getting married for the first time at age 50. She prefers not to share too much about her marriage, Only that her husband first saw her during a performance in Cape Town.
Mother to Mother
Mtshali-Jones, who has one child, says show business made no room for a big family. “I was always on the road, there was no time for making babies,” she says.
Her first acting break came in the 70s when she was still a domestic worker, singing Zulu lullabies to her “madam’s children”. Mtshali-Jones landed a role in Welcome Msomi’s Umabatha and then moved on to appear in the legendary Ipi Ntombi. While on the road she learned the ropes from the likes of Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela.
Mtshali-Jones stage career took off rapidly, fast evolving into television in the 1980s, when she played Thoko in the local sitcom, Sgudi Snaysi.
Mother to Mother, is her second monologue and Mtshali-Jones never thought she would be able to crack it. It was Yael Farber’s play titled A
Woman in Waiting, which helped with the task of single-handedly commanding the stage.
“It was a big challenge for me to be the only person on stage from beginning to end.” After working with Farber monologues, her second attempt did not seem as daunting. It was a chance encounter between herself and author Sindiwe Magona that led to
Mother to Mother being produced. Mtshali-Jones met Magona when she was doing a voice-over for a play on Bush Radio in Cape Town.
After reading Magona’s book titled, Mother to Mother, MtshaliJones decided she wanted to adapt it into a play. The book is based on the real-life story of the killing of American student, Amy Biehl, in Gugulethu township in Western Cape in 1993.
With a fictional twist, the narrative portrays an imagined conversation between Amy’s mother and the mother of one of her murderers.
Mtshali-Jones plays a woman called Mandisa, mother of one of the killers. After consultation, she, Magona and director Janice Honeyman reworked the play.
It made its premier in 2009 at the Baxter Theatre and has since appeared at various festivals, including the National Black Theatre Festival in North Carolina, US.
Mother to Mother is on at the Market Theatre until June 9.