Fugard at The Fugard

Fugard at the Fugard was a moving theatrical event. His latest (last?) play, The Train Driver, is a welcome recovery, and represents a kind of homecoming. It marks a return to the Eastern Cape location of much of his best work. The stark, spare setting (a desolate, sandy graveyard) is evocative, with its single, Godot-like tree and the rough graves in the foreground. Yet again we have two marginalised characters struggling to make some sense of their lives. This time around, though, the basic humanism often vested in Fugard’s women characters is articulated by Roelf, and suggested by the relationship that begins to develop between him and the Andile (a stunning performance by Owen Sejake). Sentimentality is almost entirely absent, and the dialogue is convincing. Echoes of earlier plays linger almost as a subtext. The theatre itself is wonderfully atmospheric. Long may the spirit of Fugard inhabit it.
Given the ticket prices, the audience was hardly representative of Cape Town’s diversity. (This is not just a minor quibble, in view of Fugard’s intimate relationship with township players and audiences.) One hopes that an effort will be made to offer some tickets at discounted prices (and not just on Tuesdays).

Malema - Clown Prince or Crown Prince?

Julius Malema is the person we (or some people) love to hate. He is the butt of all jokes, an answer to the cartoonist’s prayer. Just how seriously should we take Juju, this man who is ‘married to the ANC’, who is ready to ‘kill for Zuma’, this ihlongandlebe (Fred Khumalo) who trades in insults and thinly veiled threats, who plays the race card shamelessly, and who parades his new-found wealth?
Crown Prince or Clown Prince? Serious threat or stand-up comic? Lekota compares him to the ‘child soldiers’ who have caused mayhem across Africa. Is he one of the ‘never-ending parade of corrupt clowns’ who are ‘drunkenly driven by a culture of entitlement’ (Breytenbach)? One of the new rising class of ‘tenderpreneurs’ who milk the system for what they can get? Or does he channel the discontent of millions of young black South Africans? Or is he all of the above?
All this points to the sorry decline in our public life, where name-calling and the exchange of insults become a substitute for informed debate. It also points to the apparent degeneration of the ANC. The language that Malema uses sometimes echoes that of the corrupt and ruthless despot who still rules Zimbabwe with a fist of iron. Yet it strikes a chord. One can discern a pattern: first the outrageous comment or insult – then the apology. But what one remembers is the deliberate provocation. One suspects that he knows just what he is doing. . . .
Just how much power and influence does Malema wield? Is he just a ‘useful idiot’ whose excesses will be tolerated (because he helped to deliver the youth vote – and because he helped to pave the way for Zuma’s rise to power)? He is clearly arrogant, ignorant, militant, intolerant and opportunistic – a demagogue in the making (but not an idiot!). How much licence will the ANC allow him? In the worst case scenario, might they find that he is beyond their power to recall? Do we laugh at him at our own peril?

Against caricature

Public debate in South Africa presents a depressing spectacle. Perhaps it most closely resembles the medieval practice of putting the miscreant in the stocks and inviting the public to hurl rotten fruit at him/her. As a result we have stock figures of fun, caricatures which can too easily be substituted for reality. This produces an orgy of finger-pointing and name-calling, the real purpose of which is self-exculpation. It provides a temporary sense of relief and release: at last we have found a target, a scapegoat, on which we can vent our indignation and blame all our ills. And there are such easy, inviting targets: shower-headed Zuma, pig-headed Malema, botoxed Helen Zille, the figure of our late Minister of Health, adorned in beetroot and garlic – one could go on . . . . But in the midst of all this, aren’t we perhaps missing something? Perhaps what escapes is that much-touted, much-abused thing called ‘truth’ (however partial or provisional), or ‘fairness’, or ‘respect for the facts’. Is the accuser always holy, one wonders? What a wonderful, simplistic solution these caricatured figures present! And how cheering it all is! But doesn’t this encourage intolerance, and produce an even more polarised society?

Making a difference

Perhaps a starting point should be the recognition that whether we like it or not our attitudes and actions do make a difference. What we do (or don’t do), both individually and collectively, makes a difference. Our attitudes and actions rub off on others and have an effect. If we choose not to act, or not to vote, or not to join whatever organisaation, this has an effect. If we send an email to Avaaz.org or observe Earth Hour (on 27 March) this has an (admittedly miniscule) effect. Steve Biko’s question still seems relevant: do we want to be part of the problem, or part of the solution?’ If we opt for apathy, cynicism, indifference or despair, don’t we become part of the problem? And if we choose to exert ourselves don’t we potentially become part of the solution? Or, if ‘solution’ is too alarming and utopian a word, aren’t we (in however small a way) helping to move us an inch or two in the right direction?
What is ‘the right direction’? Of course, I am assuming that our exertions are directed to making South Africa a less violent, less unjust and less unequal place. Unfortunately, as the much quoted W.B. Yeats once put it, ‘The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity’.

Is the glass half full or half empty?

This, is. I suspect is a perplexity which many of us face on a daily basis. It seems to be an unsolvable dilemma, since the same set of facts can be either cause for despair or optimism (rather like the duck/rabbit). Are we (as a nation) taking the high road or the low road? Are things getting better or worse? Should we start packing for Perth, or should we prepare for the long haul and put our shoulders to the wheel? Is staying on an act of faith or an act of folly? I suspect that as South Africans we all – rather like Athol Fugard’s Hally – ‘oscillate between hope and despair’. How much of the optimism that attended the 1994 elections remains?

Perplexities and Dilemmas

The aim of this Words eKapa blog is to reflect in what I hope is a modest and interesting way on some of the perplexities and dilemmas that confront us on a daily basis. These range from the universal (‘To be or not to be’) to the local and particular. Some blogs may just contain bits of information that I found helpful or provocative (we all suffer from information overload). This is offered in the spirit of open-minded enquiry that I believe should characterise what we do as sentient and (hopefully) thinking beings and also as South African citizens. (I hope the two are not incompatible!).