Bra Gib - Father Of South Africa’s Township Theatre 2q424v

i

BRA GIB Father of South Africa’s Township Theatre

Rolf Solberg

ii

Contents

Acknowledgements Foreword by David B. Coplan Preface

ix xi xv

PART 1: Kente the Playwright

1

1. The formative years Dorkay House

3 5

2. The 1960s: the early plays Manana the Jazz Prophet Sikalo Lifa Zwi

8 8 10 14 17

3. The ‘Political Trilogy’ How Long? I Believe Beyond a Song Too Late

23 24 27 29 30

4. In the heat of the Struggle Can You Take It? Laduma Taximan and the School Girl The Load/Mama and the Load The early 1980s Hungry Spoon Lobola

32 35 37 38 41 44 44 45 iii

Hard Road Going Back/Looking Back/Marakalas

46 48

5. Time out, and return Now is the Time/My Troubled Land Bad Times, Mzala/Things are Bad, Mzala

51 55 56

6. Vision of a promised land Sekunjalo/The Naked Hour

59 59

7. End of an era WeMame! Give a Child/We Are the Future

71 71 72

8. The new dispensation Mfowethu Mama’s Love Lahliwe/What a Shame Ezakithi How Long 2

75 78 82 88 91 96

9. End game The Call

100 101

10. The curtain comes down

103

11. Gibson Kente’s legacy

108

PART 2: ‘The Person Gibson Kente’

111

Professor Vilakazi’s letter of recommendation Kente the Theatre Artist Kente the Teacher Kente the Musician Kente the Entrepreneur

113 115 127 139 147

Photo Insert between pages 110 and 111 List of Plays Endnotes Index

157 159 168 iv

1

PART 1 Kente the Playwright

3

1 The formative years

Gibson Mthuthuzeli Kente was born on 25 July 1932 in Duncan Village near East London in the Eastern Cape. He was of the Madiba clan, and thus related to Nelson Mandela, who was his uncle. He was the second of five children, one of whom died in infancy. Despite not having much to do with his father, his childhood was carefree and he was, as he itted, badly spoilt as the favourite boy child. The family was comparatively secure financially. They had two houses in Tsolo, and Gibson’s mother, Ellen (whose African name was Nonzophi), ran a little business selling fruit and vegetables. She was a generous woman who readily shared what she had with others. Gibson’s older sister, s, says that he was very close to his mother. His maternal grandparents owned a sizeable farm at Stutterheim. When they died, his mother moved there with her family. Gibson spent many childhood holidays on the family farm and it was doubtless there that he developed the almost religious rapport with the world of nature that stayed with him for the rest of his life. Schooling for Kente began at the local St Philip’s Primary School.Always an inventive child and prone to mischief, in 1939 he was moved from Class 2 at St Philip’s to the primary division of Bethel College, a strict Seventh Day Adventist boarding school in Butterworth.2 Secondary schooling followed at Lovedale College in Alice, where the original plan was for him to complete his secondary education and then stay on in the teacher training division of the College with a view to qualifying as a teacher. In 1951, however, after clashing with the Lovedale authorities over political involvement in ‘oppositional activities’, Kente found himself briefly expelled, along with other students; the authorities subsequently relented and the students were reitted. Among his accomplishments in the Lovedale years, Kente showed promise as a sportsman, excelling in athletics, boxing, rugby and table tennis, playing 3

4

Bra Gib

college rugby at provincial level and showing sufficient promise in boxing for a sports coach to suggest that he go professional. ‘I turned his offer down because education had a stronger appeal to me,’ said Kente in an interview with Metropolitan Digest in 1987.3 In 1953 he was the ‘black South African’ discus champion and came second in shot put. More significantly for our story, at Lovedale Kente also learnt to play the piano. From early childhood, music was a central part of Gibson Kente’s universe. As he put it in the 1987 interview, although he was ‘not really trained to compose music’, musical ability was for him ‘an in-born talent’.4 Preserved in family legend are stories of herdboy Gibson hearing melodies in the air when he was out in the veld with the cattle; it’s probable that such a child would have absorbed and enjoyed the traditionally strong musical culture of the Seventh Day Adventists during the time he spent at school with them. Reminiscing in an interview with the Marxist critic Robert McLaren Kavanagh about his schooldays at Bethel College in Butterworth, Kente recalled that: Every Sunday was like the typical revival meet in the States. We yelled with piety. We yelled till we had to speak in whispers the following day. Man, we yelled!5

In the 1987 Metropolitan Digest interview he spoke of the strong emphasis on biblical studies and training at Butterworth, coupled with gospel and religious music, adding: ‘I also received much pleasure and inspiration from Negro spirituals.’6 Along with the piano lessons, it was in the Lovedale years that sports star Kente also learned how to write down the songs that came into his head, and he began to use them in sketches at the College. His stay there came to a premature end when he fell out once more with the Lovedale authorities – this time, more seriously, for ‘militancy’ – and he was expelled for good. Decamping to East London, he filled in time for a year or two earning his bread as an uncertified social worker. He also formed a popular singing group called The Symphonic Five – a sign that the entertainment world was beginning to beckon. This trend was set to continue when, in 1955, Kente cut loose from his Eastern Cape origins and migrated to Johannesburg to as a Social Work student at the pioneering Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work, housed,

The formative years

5

along with the Bantu Men’s Social Centre, next door to Dorkay House in downtown Eloff Street. The founder-director of the Jan Hofmeyr School, and also founder of the Bantu Men’s Social Centre, was the Rev. Ray Philips, an American Congregationalist with a long history of activism against segregation. He appeared to be a shrewd judge of character, too, judging by the way he encouraged the new student Kente’s interest in cultural activities that could lead to a career in music or the theatre. In the end, Kente never did come to practise as a professional social worker. As he put it in a 1980 interview with The Star: ‘I went straight into showbiz, and have been there ever since.’7 The Sowetan journalist, Doc Bikitsha, met Kente as a newcomer to Johannesburg and gave the following characterisation of the young Gibson: I first met him in 1956 when I started working for the Bantu Men’s Social Centre. He was studying at the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work . . . Kente’s niche in history is established. My first impression of him has never wavered. It confirms the belief that you can take a Xhosa out of the homeland, but you can never take the Xhosa out of the man. Soweto has broken many a rustic or yokel, but failed when it came to Kente. Instead he broke the country down. The whole country copied his style of music, dance and theatre . . . With hindsight, I can hazard that Kente’s infectious art form and style has contributed to kwaito, pantsula and other genres today. You cannot overestimate his contribution. He might have appeared eccentric to some people, but he was never egocentric. He had his shortcomings, but was the ultimate professional.8

Dorkay House Kente’s earliest paid job in the entertainment industry was with Gallo Africa, subsequently Gallo Recording Company, where he was employed as a talent scout between 1957 and 1959. Gallo was working hard in those days to hold onto its position as the leading South African recording company, and the job put Kente in touch with many top musicians – including luminaries like Miriam Makeba, Caiphus Semenya, Letta Mbulu, Hugh Masekela, and the Manhattan Brothers – for whom Kente also wrote songs and melodies. Later he came to know pianist and bandleader Chris MacGregor, and learnt

6

Bra Gib

much from him about music and composition. It wasn’t long before Kente wanted to strike out on his own. Dorkay House was where this first came about. Dorkay House was a rallying point for up-and-coming artists in South Africa during the 1950s and 60s, and its history was closely bound up with that of the Bantu Men’s Social Centre next door at 1 Eloff Street.The Bantu Men’s Social Centre was originally established in 1924 to provide recreational facilities, including a library, for young black men. One of the organisations which conducted its early activities at the Centre was the Bantu Dramatic Society, founded by Herbert Dhlomo,9 whose plays were performed there in the 1930s and 40s. It was Dhlomo who first invoked the concept of ‘the New African’ – upwardly mobile, black, urban and middle-class. Another organisation that began its life at the Social Centre was the ANC Youth League, launched there in 1944 by some of those who were to become the future leaders of the ANC: Nelson Mandela; Walter Sisulu; Oliver Tambo; and others. Funded with proceeds from a farewell concert at the Bantu Men’s Social Centre for Sophiatown’s beloved English clergyman, Father Trevor Huddleston,10 Dorkay House, formerly a clothing factory, was secured for the arts in 1956 by Ian Bernhardt, a white theatre enthusiast who had helped to launch the Bareti Players for an all-black Shakespeare production in 1955. Bernhardt was a co-founder of the Union of South African Artists, also known as Union Artists. Its off-shoot, the African Music and Drama Association, which was housed at Dorkay House, rapidly established itself as a hub for young, ambitious black artists and writers. Dorkay House became the launch pad for a number of distinguished careers in South African theatre. Along with Gibson Kente, the Dorkay roll of honour includes names like Barney Simon; Athol Fugard; Mbongeni Ngema; and numerous others – although, in time to come, quite a few of those would also have been through the training ground of Gibson Kente Productions. Ian Bernhardt’s involvement in black theatre was important for black artists, particularly in the turbulent 1960s, when it was easier for a white person to keep the authorities at bay in conflicts involving black entertainers. When the prohibition against mixed theatre casts and audiences began to take effect in the early 1960s through the implementation of the Separate Amenities Act,11 Dorkay House was almost the only venue in the Johannesburg area, apart from private houses and university halls, where black theatre practitioners could operate without government interference.

The formative years

7

In 1959 Union Artists scored a spectacular hit with the jazz opera, King Kong. Written by Harry Bloom to music by Stanley Glaser and Todd Matshikiza, the show was resoundingly successful in South Africa as well as abroad – and a huge source of inspiration to young and ambitious talents like Gibson Kente. Although King Kong, Alan Paton’s Sponono and other plays focusing on South African black life were rehearsed, produced and financed by multiracial Dorkay House, the entertainment industry overall was still controlled by whites; blacks might sing, play, dance, act and produce banners and props, but organising and running the whole show was a different matter. This was still the prevailing attitude in 1959 when Gibson Kente gave up his job as talent scout for Gallo Africa to become director of Union Artists. Inspired by the success of King Kong, he was impatient to tackle something challenging and creative and decided to try his hand as a composer/ producer. By this time he had formed the Kente Choristers, the vocal group for which he composed pieces in the popular Zionist ngcwele ngcwele style.12 He had also written several songs for Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba and other rising stars and composed a big hit, ‘Somandla’, for the Manhattan Brothers; so he was not without show-business experience. For someone like Kente, it would have been hard to resist the buzz of Dorkay House and he was soon firmly hooked by the stage. Looking for new challenges, he determined to try his hand as a theatrical producer. He invited writer friends to come up with a story he could use and, getting no takers, set about writing the script himself. Manana the Jazz Prophet was the first offspring of his new ion.

8

Bra Gib

2 The 1960s: the early plays

Manana the Jazz Prophet (1961) This is the story of how jazz musician Manana tackles a bunch of young toughs who abuse their women and flash their knives at the slightest provocation. On stage with Manana, appearing here for the first time, is a fair sample of the stock characters that, over the years, came to populate the typical Kente township scene: the hoodlums themselves (the tsotsis); the local shebeen queen; the good-time girls; and the local preacher/ priest. Manana’s answer to the tsotsi problem is to persuade the preacher to, literally, jazz up his services with gospel song and catchy beat and thus lure them into church in the hope that they will put their wicked ways behind them. The leader of the tsotsis, Tom, is constantly in trouble because he is married to church-going Ma, while remaining a faithful patron of the local shebeen with its beckoning girls. Tom and his cronies, The Group, decide to take their girls to church to see what it’s all about. In due course, they all (the preacher, too, evidently) get won over by Manana’s jazzed-up version of the service.All the girls fall in love with the ‘prophet’ and the boys are madly jealous.

Kente once described himself as a ‘moderate Christian’ and he never sought to disown his mission-school upbringing. Dixon Molele, who worked in some of the earlier Kente productions, recalls that God got a mention in every one.13 This hints at a side of Kente’s personality that may square a little oddly with his reputation as bon viveur but perhaps should not be too lightly discounted. In Manana, the Dorkay House protégé plainly sets out to entertain and beguile, but a didactic purpose is not far beneath the surface. Like his 8

The 1960s: the early plays

9

stage character Manana, Kente appears to have found township churches a bit too staid for their own good. Manana attracted little media attention when it was first performed in 1961 in the Wits University Great Hall, since Gibson Kente was, as yet, a relatively unknown name in theatre circles. Two years later, when it was put on at the Mofolo Hall in Soweto, the initial township audience loved it. But the production faltered, with the run being cut short owing to, as Kente saw it, inadequate publicity and poor istration on the part of the Dorkay House management. The townships lacked permanent theatre facilities; a production such as this needed to be set up as a travelling unit, with onenight shows in schools and township halls. It’s likely that no-one was quite ready for this earliest moment of what came to be the rolling Kente juggernaut! Nonetheless it was a shrewd decision for Kente to focus his sights on township audiences – and not just in order to sidestep the madness of the Separate Amenities Act, with its prohibition of racially mixed audiences, as well as mixed casts. This meant that for a black performer to be able to sing in a play with white actors, it now had to be done unseen, from the wings. During the first public run of Manana in Soweto, the reviews, though generally positive, seem somewhat bemused by this novel creation, referring to it variously as: ‘a straightforward musical performance’; ‘a restatement of daily life’; and ‘an extremely colourful disted musical circus’. One critic declared that the rough language of the play: . . . reflects the inner violence of the township and is concerned about the basic issues of human conduct and ways to establish the word of the Almighty . . . [but] Gibson Kente allows the forces of repentance to take control at the end of the performance and the light of humanity to shine in the characters.14

Sydney Matlakhu writes in Post that the show held the audience’s attention to the last. The songs have: fire, wit and freedom from clichés . . . The audience was thrilled to see such young, unknown actors and instrumentalists playing jazz and gospel ditties and giving full expression to themselves.15

10

Bra Gib

Sikalo (1965) Sikalo, which means ‘Lament’, is a generation-gap story. The plot deals with a traditionalist father and his conflict with his township-born son with tsotsi leanings, and there is also a love story between Sikalo and his girlfriend Tando. Sikalo’s father, who has had a rural upbringing and whose father was killed by one of his own sons, attempts to instil a sense of inferiority in Sikalo, along with the need for obedience, embodied in the lines of the famous song from the play, ‘If you’ve never been to the mountain, you’re a boy’. Sikalo is clever and his alertness attracts the attention of the gangsters Shushu, Congo and Sida, but Sikalo refuses to them. Sida falls in love with Tando, Sikalo’s girl. The tsotsis kill fat man Baduza and frame Sikalo for the murder, sending him to jail. Tando teams up with Qavile, Sikalo’s friend, who pretends to be stupid but is as clever and central to the plot as his name implies.16 They bribe the jail-warden and Sikalo escapes. When Nonto, Sida’s girlfriend, hears that Sida is after Tando, she spills the beans; the gangsters are rounded up and Sikalo, one assumes, is acquitted.

With his first play, Manana, Kente had followed the call to a life in theatre; his second play, Sikalo, took that calling to a new level. It launched him unexpectedly into an independent career of remarkable and unprecedented theatrical entrepreneurship, allowing him to take his special brand of entertainment to a nationwide stage where, for a number of years, he reigned supreme. Like Manana, Sikalo initially came to production under the auspices of Dorkay House. When it was first performed in late 1965, independently of Union Artists, it was seen by the Union’s decision-makers. They decided, over Kente’s head, that Union Artists would take over and produce the play. This they did in the Wits Great Hall in July 1966. Mindful of Union Artists’ success with King Kong, Kente initially went along with that decision. But when they declared that Sikalo was to be performed as part of the Lesotho Independence Day celebrations in September 1966 and also took it upon themselves to meddle with the casting of the play, insisting on a white codirector, Kente and the cast rebelled.

The 1960s: the early plays

11

Kente and his players were unwilling to allow Ian Bernhardt and his board to ‘destroy’ Sikalo by repeating what the Kente camp perceived as the management mistakes – sloppy promotion and poor istration – that had plagued the production of Manana, and they resented what seemed like renewed high-handedness. Shortly after the opening performance in Soweto, Kente decided to cut loose from Union Artists, and did so with the full of his cast. As Kente himself relates, the incident turned out to be a moment of high theatre for all concerned: The cast bus was parked in Eloff Street in front of Dorkay House ready to transport the Sikalo cast to the show. After an hour and a half of deliberation with Ian, I stepped out of the building to report to the cast that my negotiation with Ian Bernhardt and his committee on our Sikalo had borne no fruit. Vexed and full-to-thebrim, the cast vowed, ‘No deal, no show’. What happened thereafter remains one of the most unforgettable and touching experiences of my life. Ian used threats to try to get the cast to board the bus and go to the show. I told Ian we had taken a decision and no amount of threats and force would change that. Ian called the police, alleging that our actions constituted a breach of contract. Police arrived with their dogs; they tried their strongarm tactics coercing us to board the bus. Hell broke loose. Emotions seized my cast like a spell. Traffic stopped as my angry artists [stood in] Eloff Street [ready for] any eventuality, their feelings and words dunked in tears. They dared the cops: ‘Arrest us. You can arrest us. We will fight for our rights. Away with white exploitation,’ etc., etc., etc. I cried too, but not only because of the drama that was unfolding before my eyes. Burning questions were rushing through my mind like chickens answering a call for food. ‘My god, they are prepared to face the unknown with me.’ Embarrassed, Ian Bernhardt had to tell the cops to leave. Revisiting the events of that day, I always say: that incident had to happen for me to happen. Fate planned it that way. That was the parting of the ways with Dorkay. That chapter was closed. Unbeknown to my cast and me a new chapter with profound and far-reaching consequences and significance was just about to unfold.17

Relations with Dorkay House were subsequently restored to some degree.