Review
The House of Truth Rating: 4 of 5 stars Director: Vanessa Cooke Playwright: Siphiwo Mahala Cast: Sello Maake ka Ncube Lighting design: Bruce Koch Set and costumes: Noluthando Lobese-Moropa Stage manager: Ofentse Mothusi Review by: Masego Panyane
IN THE words of fictional wizardry educator from the
Harry Potter franchise, Professor Albus Dumbledore: “The truth…” Dumbledore sighed. “It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”
It is with this heavy feeling of a rather crude awakening that I walked out of the performance of The House of Truth that is currently on in Sandton.
As a young, black female journalist, I watched Sello Maake ka Ncube slip into the life of the associate editor at one of the iconic black publications of the 1960s, Drum magazine.
Canodoce “Can” Themba, the teacher of the newsroom is immortalised in the 80-minute one-man show that’s based on his life. The production was written by Siphiwo Mahala and performed by Ka Ncube. It was directed by respected theatre practitioner, Vanessa Cooke.
The play is set at 111 Ray Street, Sophiatown – Themba’s apartment – which he later dubbed the House of Truth.
Ka Ncube is stationed at his desk inside the House of Truth. The desk is cluttered with letters, article cut-outs and notebooks, with a typewriter taking up a chunk of the desktop space. It has on the far edge a black and white photo that is supposedly of his wife, Annie.
The lighting is used effectively to highlight certain aspects and it softens Ka Ncube at crucial points, to make him appear vulnerable and gives the stage an old feel to it.
Ka Ncube must be commended for managing to take on such a mountain of a script with such flare. If you really pay attention, there are parts where he seemed to fluff the lines a little. But given his wealth of experience as an actor and thespian, he makes it seem all part of the act.
The sound and music that accompanies the act in certain parts of the play add to its authenticity, especially the playback of Dolly Rathebe performing at the opening of The
House of Truth. Ka Ncube is an absolute pleasure to watch.
He handles the emotions of the production beautifully, you feel his anguish every time the Transvaal Education Department responds to his queries, with rejection after rejection – keeping him further away from the classroom in which he dreams of teaching.
The audience is forced to empathise with him as his indignation and his anger rise at the injustices that apartheid doles out to black people in the country. Here, Mahala’s hours of rewriting and researching Themba’s life are clearly visible, as the play takes you through Can Themba’s life . The House of Truth is a must see.