The Wangai
Staged by Ubom! Ubutsha
It was about two weeks into March when I set off to observe the activities of Ubom! Ubutsha. I had not known about their existence before this. I had of course heard about Ubom! – the famous Grahamstown and Eastern Cape theatre company. As Rhodes students, we are exposed to them from as early as our first week at university during orientation, when they present a play that is designed to help us to adapt to the university environment. But now, this new name presented itself to me.
Before getting into the details of The Wangai, I needed to know more about the people who were putting the show on stage. Who was Ubom! Ubutsha, and how were they different from Ubom!? This was an essential step for me, in order to be able to gain a grounded perspective on the show itself.
I asked this question of Professor Andrew Buckland, the director of The Wangai. Andrew is a previous head of the Drama Department, and is known internationally for his exploration of new forms of theatre in which he often combines political satire, physical theatre and mime. He has worked with Ubom! since its inception in 2003. He explained to me that the company has always been serious about contributing to the strengthinging of a local community of theatre practitioners. For this reason, members of the company and of the Rhodes Drama Department run weekly classes, targeting Grahamstown-based artists who have not, as yet, benefitted from access to formal training.
In 2013, these workshops were taken a step further when Themba Mchunu, a Masters student in the Drama Department, incorporated them into a project for his coursework. Themba took ownership of the group of participants who were involved in that year's workshops, and helped them to develop an identity for themselves as a theatre company in their own right. This group now exists adjacent to, but still under the banner of, the Ubom! company. The word ‘Ubom’, means 'life' in isiXhosa. The new company extended this title with the word ‘ubutsha’, which means 'new'.
Ayanda Nondlwana with Mandisi Heshu watching on, during a rehearsal at the Princess Alice Hall
The Ubom! Ubutsha cast rehearsing at the Princess Alice Hall
Gallery of school visits by The Wangai's promotional team in weeks building up to production week.
DISCOVERING UBOM! UBUTSHA
ACTION!
PREPARING FOR PRODUCTION
Photo by Neo Baepi
Exciting the crowd before show start Photo by Neo Baepi
Photo by Sheila David
Photo by Neo Baepi
WHERE TO NOW?
Matthew Maralack of The Wangai promotional team speaks about how the audiences over the week were gathered.
Photo by Alexa Sedgwick
Audience and teachers respond to The Wangai
Photo by Alexa Sedgwick
The Wangai
At the National Arts Festival
7 July 10:00
8 July 19:00
Venue: Memory Hall
The company members also explained to me that Ubom! and Ubom! Ubutsha do not know how long they will have to wait until they next receive funding. Despite all their good work, these actors may not be able to go on stage again to promote their message about the importance of environmental care. I find this disheartening. It seems unjust that municipal and national finances cannot be invested into theatre, especially when it contributes so strongly to the promotion of a healthy society.
I thinkThe Wangai was able to do something that many other forms of communication cannot do. There is a unique power to this kind of interactive theatre. The director, the cast, the support team and the audience come together to create a powerful story. The children’s attention was captured long before the show and they became connected to the story about the magic of trees through the design of leaves. By the time of the performance, the energy that this created was palpable. The children were able to engage, listen, and learn. Hopefully, in future, they will also be prompted to act.
One of the members of the cast told me that the experience of putting together this play had been exhausting. “You cannot call yourself a complete performer until you’ve done children’s theatre,” he said. The level of energy that the cast had to sustain both in training and during performance was truly phenomenal. The results were, however, equally rewarding.
During the weeks building up to the first performance, it was not only the cast that was kept busy. There was also a promotional team, made up of students from the Drama Department's Honours class. They visited primary schools across Grahamstown, to tell them about the play. I joined the team on these visits. They spoke to the children about conservation, and about protecting trees. They asked the children to design their own leaves. These would be handed in on the day their school watched the show, and would then be used as decoration for the entrance to the theatre.
I could see that the aim of these visits was to get the children excited about the show. But more importantly, the students were trying to make the children more aware of their environment. They were planting the seeds of ideas that the show would later water and nurture.
The first topic we got onto was, whyThe Lorax? Andrew explained that he had chosen to use themes from this book because it is about humankind’s relationship with their environment, in a way that promotes sustainability. The Wangai is essentially the story ofThe Lorax, retold in an Eastern Cape setting. Andrew feels that through this reinterpretion, Ubom! Ubutsha can provide local children with a story that has the same message as the original book, but presented in a way that they are able to relate to better.
I had read on Ubom!’s website that The Wangai was inspired by Dr Seuss’s book The Lorax. I knew that this was a children’s story that emphasises the importance of protecting trees and the natural environment in general. There was obviously a lot more I needed to find out!
I discovered that the cast were rehearsing at the Princess Alice Hall in African Street, right in the middle of the central bussiness district of Grahamstown. Every day of the working week, from 8am into the late afternoon. This was their rehearsal routine, in preparation for the staging ofThe Wangai, which was now only three weeks away.
It was on a rainy Tuesday morning that I attended my first Ubom! Ubutsha rehearsal. When I arrived, the members of the cast had already begun their warm-up. As someone uninitiated to the world of theatre, I found the experience very strange. Ten people were walking around the empty hall in a way that seemed to me to be completely at random. Andrew Buckland, the director of the play, was shouting instructions: “Fill the space! Fill the space!” The group members alternated between walking around aimlessly and rolling on the floor in a widespread pattern. They then formed a rough circle, and began to perform a series of stretch exercises followed by voice exercises.
I found these voice exercises most fascinating. For one exercise, each cast member projected a sustained but fluctuating deep note, simultaneously with the rest of the group. This series of sounds produced extremely dissonant harmonies. Because we were in a large empty hall, this created the musical phenomenon of overtones, in which these overtones were almost as loud as the original tones projected by the actors. It created an eerie atmosphere, a feeling of the supernatural. I was mesmerised.
But the warm-up was over soon enough. And as the cast took a break, I was able to talk to Andrew.
Andrew explained to me that Ubom! Ubutsha now exists as an official theatre company, comprised of local Grahamstown artists. Ubom! hopes that their status as a company will give them the opportunity to make a name for themselves in professional theatre.
After this discovery I was ready to focus on The Wangai. I knew that they were already in full rehearsal, and that time was running out for me to capture their creative process!
Andrew Buckland
Sourced from http://ruactivate.wordpress.com
As we approached the week of final production, the cast and its support team appeared excited and prepared. My own sense was that, if all would go according to plan, the children of Grahamstown would be in for a treat. And the play would not only entertain them, but would also set them thinking about their own place in the world of environmental issues.
But I wanted to find out how the children felt about the core message of the play. After the performance was over, the children excitedly left the theatre. Each individual received a lollipop as a parting gift. I managed to catch up with a group of pupils from Oatlands Preparatory. When asked what they learnt from the show, there was a simultaneous shout, “The trees!” “We must look after the trees because they are important”.
We’ll have to wait patiently to find out and see what the future holds for Ubom! Ubutsha – whether or not they will be able to inform, educate, and inspire audiences in the Eastern Cape in the near future.
If the message of The Wangai truly has left its mark, it would be that art is vital in any society. It is a way in which voices can be heard, ideas can be shared, and collective inspiration born – new life.
You might ask – what on earth is a wangai? I was wondering this too. Andrew explained that he was inspired by Kenyan environmental and political activist, Professor Wangari Maathai. Maathai was the founder of the Green Belt movement - which focused on poverty reduction and environmental conservation through community-based tree planting. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace. In 2011, Maathai died of cancer, but she continues to be a role model for environmental activists.
According to Andrew, Maathai's life embodies the relationship between humans and the environment that is portrayed inThe Wangai. The word is drawn from the sound of her name. At the same time, it evokes the phrase ‘one guy’, because the message of the play is that it takes one person to make a difference. The hope is that each child in the audience will becomes that one guy – somone who stands up for the trees and for the environment.
The week of the performances finally arrived. They were to take place three times a day, at the Rhodes University Box Theatre. Primary schools from around Grahamstown were invited to attend, including Oatlands Preparatory, C.M. Vellem Primary, St. Andrew’s Preparatory, Kuyasa Special Needs School and Fikizolo Primary, to name some.
I watched the children trouping into the foyer of the Rhodes Theatre. They handed in their leaves to the Honours drama students, who added them to the display in the foyer area. The drama students were acting as ushers, but also played an integral part in sparking the enthusiasm on which the show depends. They hushed the children, telling them not to wake the Wangai. I could see the children trying to imagine this thing or creature which to them was a complete mystery. Their faces became intrigued, and they walked into the theatre, fascinated by the atmosphere of suspense. Here was a hall filled with children all speaking quietly, in case the Wangai, whatever it was, would jump out and grab them. I could see the magic of the play was beginning to work.
Then the tension was released. The ushers asked the children to scream as loudly as they could the word ‘wangai!’ They must now wake the creature up and get the show started. They shouted once, twice, three times - and only then did the lights go out and the show began.
Throughout the performance there was laughing and shouting and pointing, as the cast posed questions, made jokes and did silly things. I could see that the children were enjoying themselves, and swept up in the story about the strange creature and its love for trees.
I got the impression that most of the children did walk away with a picture in their mind, which captured what the play was all about. Even if they were not able to explain in detail why we need to look after trees, the Wangai planted the seed of the idea that trees play a crucial role in the world, and that the future of our environment as we know it depends on them.
I think, though, that more needs to be done for this seed to grow. The teachers who accompanied these children to the play would need to play a role here, helping them to colour in the picture in their minds. I spoke about this to a teacher from Oatlands Primary School. She felt that the play held great importance for the children, because they are the future leaders of South Africa, and of the world more generally. "If we give them good sound solid roots, hopefully it will follow through when they reach adulthood and have to lead this country," she said.