Malika Ndlovu

Cape Town performance poet and writer

Live Productions

• Sister Breyani
• A Coloured Place

 

Sister Breyani

Five sisters, one journey, one weekend, lotsa baggage…

What happens when five sisters get together over a weekend for the first time in three years lugging with them all the baggage which siblings carry? Is this a recipe for disaster or could it contain all the ingredients for a lovely pot of breyani?

Performance poet and author Malika Ndlovu’s new play, Sister Breyani, will heat up the Baxter Theatre stage from 6 to 30 May 2009, after its premier at the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees in Oudtshoorn.

Director Lara Bye has assembled a formidable cast of power-house women made up of Denise Newman (Erfsondes, Sorrows and Rejoicings), Mary Daniels (Suip!, Kanna Hy Kô Hystoe), Lee-Ann van Rooi (Fishy Fêshuns, Shirley, Goodness and Mercy), Euodia Sampson (Vatmaar, Kanna Hy Kô Hystoe) and newcomer Roxanne Blaise (In Media Res, Khululeka).

Durban-born Ndlovu last performed as the Baxter Theatre Centre in 2006 in Womantide with Tina Schouw and Ernestine Deane showcasing their original poetry, songs and music. Although her work as a poet has been extensively published in South Africa and abroad, it is her sixth play as solo writer.

An excited Ndlovu says, “Its been a while since I last wore my playwright hat and I am exhilarated to have the serendipity of a dream cast and director bringing life and their own interpretations to this new script. Having Sister Breyani in such gifted hands and with the full support of the Baxter, exactly the way I’d want the stories and characters in the play to be honoured.”

Well-known for her award-winning A Coloured Place, Ndlovu’s new play is about five sisters who reunite for the first time in almost three years over a weekend in October. The older four travel from their home city, Durban, to the big city, Johannesburg, where they meet at the new home of the youngest sibling. The celebration-cum-family reunion is simmering with excitement but before long family tensions bubble to the surface as the sisters realise that blood ties may not be enough to sustain the complex web of their relationships. Unfortunately, time is not on their side as the dream reunion soon begins to unravel.

Roxanne Blaise plays baby sister Jo-Anne who escaped the family by moving to Johannesburg, seeking her own path and distancing herself from the family issues while Lee-Anne Van Rooi plays the organized, fun-loving sports teacher Bernadette (Berni) who takes them on the journey in her car. Denise Newman is the bossy Cassandra (Sandra) who seems to prefer animals to people and sports a Zulu toy-boy much to the amusement of the others. With an infectious laugh at inappropriate moments masking her harsh life experiences Moira, played by Euodia Sampson, is the dark horse of the family now finally having hers say. Mary Daniels takes on the role of Sheila who seems to be the life and soul of the party but she carries many secrets which run deep and which go back many years.

Sister Breyani was first performed to an enthusiastic and encouraging audience in 2007 as part of the Baxter’s popular Playground Performed Play Reading. Lara Bye, who has become known for tackling an exciting and dynamic range of theatre productions, has been closely involved with Play>Ground since its inception. She has performed in and directed several of the readings including For Coloured Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is not Enuf and Jesus Hopped the “A” Train and more recently, Yellowman, plays which were all subsequently selected for mainstream staging to great success. In January she will direct La Scala di Seta, an early Rossini one-act comic opera for the Suidoosterfees.

Patrick Curtis is responsible for set and lighting design with costumes and props by Leila Anderson and sound design by Warwick Sony.

Remember those uncomfortable gatherings whether on Christmas, Eid, Rosh Hashana, Divali or any other important occasions usually intended to unite families? What about those anniversaries, birthdays or even funerals for that matter? With both snappy and poetic dialogue, a rich range of characters and easily recognisable family dynamics at play Sister Breyani will offer audiences a delicious helping of soul food that will have them coming back for seconds.

Book through Computicket on 083 915 8100, on-line at www.computicket.co.za or any Shoprite Checkers outlet. For discounted block, corporate or school bookings, charities or fundraisers, contact Sharon on 021 680 3962, Tarryn on 021 680 3991 or Sakhiwo on 021 680 3991 during office hours.

For further media enquiries, interview or pic requests contact Fahiem Stellenboom, Marketing Manager, Baxter Theatre Centre on 021 680 3971, cell 072 2656 023 or email fahiem.stellenboom@uct.ac.za.

DIRECTOR’S NOTES

It is always a special kind of thrill for a director to be approached with a brand new South African story to tell. I have always been in awe of Malika as a poet and performer - and when she approached me to direct a reading of her new play for the Baxter’s Playground series - I said yes without reading it.

That reading - with the most glorious and generous cast of women, with a text that resonated with and moved a packed house on a Cape Town Sunday afternoon - is now moving forward as a full scale production!

Malika, myself and the cast are all mothers and sisters and daughters and creative beings, and in the melting pot of this play we all find bits of ourselves - no matter how unpleasant or uncomfortable those bits might be. What a treat to have a rehearsal process so filled with laughter and talk and stories and dancing and reminiscing and recipe swapping - all inspired by the characters in the play.

We are staging the play in an abstract landscape of memory and ancestry although the scenes themselves are utterly realistic. The characters resonate for me like Pirandello’s six characters in search of an author. They are both real and in the present - but at the same time archetypal and timeless.

Many grateful thanks to Mannie Manim at the Baxter Theatre and Brett Pyper at the ABSA KKNK for their real commitment to producing and developing local work and new texts.

“ I consider myself African. But this is not a general Coloured perception. In fact, a lot of Coloured people deny their African heritage. There is an aspiration toward white beauty, although it’s not overtly stated…they furiously straighten their hair so you can’t see the African kink; they… consider a straighter nose, thinner lips, and lighter skin as beauty. And that’s the aspiration. Apartheid still lives in our minds. “

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A Coloured Place

By Malika Lueen Ndlovu

Playwright /Director’s Note, 2006

In August 2006 Malika returned to Durban, Kwa Zulu –Natal , her hometown, by invitation of The Playhouse Company to restage and direct her play A Coloured Place written in 1996, in celebration of the 10th anniversary South African Woman’s Arts Festival.

The return to this cathartic play that I wrote ten years ago, the return to my hometown and to the directors seat - which as a performer I have missed in recent years - came as wonderful invitation from the Playhouse Company. Marking the play and the SA Women’s Arts Festival’s 10th anniversary, the significance of restaging this production, retelling these stories becomes even greater. My intention for this work has always been to honour and document our past as people of mixed-descent in this region, while provoking and stimulating our own assessment of how much and how little has changed over the years in order to look at how this impacts on our future. My reunion with Chantal and Crystal, who have journeyed with and enriched this production in their unique ways, has been a joy and privilege for me. Each of them have made a deep personal investment in the process of reviving the play, bringing their integrity to the characters and professional discipline to the artistic challenges it posed for them.

For me they have brought new lifeblood into the material and as true artists have not been expecting answers from me, but asking the right questions for and of themselves. In this way my role has been more of a facilitator and devil’s advocate encouraging them to forsake their comfort zones and dive into the unknown, trusting that I will hold the space and value their feedback. Hopefully as audience, you will experience the richness and delight of our collaboration. For me, we have made a big leap in a very short space of time in fulfilling the play’s broader purpose as a historical testament that we can all feel proud of. Again, my own work has surprised me and taught me something new. A Coloured place is not a label, not a definition or a finite destination. It is a journey of evolution on which you will discover more and more colour and beauty between the black and white of our history and prejudices, more and more to celebrate.

On her initial inspiration for A Coloured Place:

It’s something I’ve avoided - the issue of Coloured people…even relating myself to the term Coloured has always been a problem for me. Doing this play is a lot like a personal journey. The idea came from having so many…South African people asking me, “What are you?” …I would assume they would know the apartheid boxes we come from. But…there’s not one particular face, or type of hair, or skin that you can say is Coloured, or can really define us. Also, if you don’t have a typically Coloured accent, it’s hard to tell.

I decided to interview Coloured people from all walks of life in terms of age, class, levels of education, gender, etc., in the Durban area. I started with friends and moved on to strangers… I also spoke to people of other racial groups to get their perception of Coloured people.

…The aim of the play is to feed and stimulate the questioning about identity and the significance of where we come from, and why, as Coloured people, we’ve never acknowledged our roots. The play says…we can define our true identity, and be at peace with that. A Coloured place means that there is a rightful place for Coloured people in South Africa - we do belong here, but many lack this sense of belonging. Coloured people were marginalized during apartheid and many believe that they are marginalized in the new South Africa because of policies like affirmative action. The most disadvantaged people and the majority, who are “pure” Africans, are being dealt with first in terms of reconstruction, development, and support, which is as it should be. Coloured people feel low on the waiting list, so there is a kind of bitterness that exists.

… To acknowledge your Africaness is…part of the liberation process…The whole perception that African is inferior, that there is nothing to aspire to, no beauty, no pride, nothing to revere, is an apartheid ideology, an apartheid illusion. These ideas are sadly still prevalent.

Reflecting a decade after writing A Coloured Place: For me, the journey has really been about layers and layers of release…of shedding of skin, and of rage and of fear…[of] not fitting in and being accepted. It’s really about self-acceptance and me getting more comfortable in my skin. More pride about the fact that I have so much mixed blood in me, and that that is a treasure that I was taught was something to be ashamed of… It was a place of shame and rejection from both sides… More and more, I come to understand that none of this is as simple as black and white -- that’s what the illusion of apartheid was about.

Malika Ndlovu on the role of theatre in South Africa: Healing.

Interviews conducted by Prof. Kathy Perkins in June 1995, (Durban), July 1997(Durban), July 2003, (Capetown), and July 2006 (Capetown).
African Women Playwrights – A Coloured Place Script & Interviews , edited by Prof. Kathy. A. Perkins (University of Illinois Press, 2008)

A Coloured Place premiered at the 1996 Southern Life Playhouse Company Women’s Arts Festival in Durban, with Chantal Snyman and directed by Malika Ndlovu. The play has performed throughout South Africa over the next ten years to enthusiastic audiences in such cities as Johannesburg, Grahamstown and Cape Town.