THE WINSTON CHURCHILL MEMORIAL TRUST OF AUSTRALIA · month stay in South Africa, working with the...

Churchill Report 2011 Francesca Savige

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THE WINSTON CHURCHILL MEMORIAL TRUST OF AUSTRALIA

Report by FRANCESCA SAVIGE – 2010 Churchill Fellow

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To investigate Shakespeare & Community Theatre under the mentorship ofJanet Buckland and Ubom! Eastern Cape Drama Company.

I understand that the Churchill Trust may publish this Report, either in hard copy or onthe internet or both, and consent to such publication.I indemnify the Churchill Trust against any loss, costs or damages it may suffer arisingout of any claim or proceedings made against the Trust in respect of or arising out of thepublication of any Report submitted to the Trust and which the Trust places on awebsite for access over the internet.I also warrant that my Final Report is original and does not infringe the copyright of anyperson, or contain anything which is, or the incorporation of which into the Final Reportis actionable for defamation, a breach of any privacy law or obligation, breach ofconfidence, contempt of court, passing-off or contravention of any other private right orof any law.Signed: Francesca Savige Date: 9/06/2011


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INDEX1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….…….page 32. Executive Summary………………………………………………………………………..……page 43. Program………………………………………………………………………….………………..…page 54. Map of Travels……………………………………………………………………………………..page 65. Janet Buckland………………………………………………………………………………….....page 76. Ubom Theatre Company………………………………………………………………………page 87. Romeo and Juliet – the journey from page to community stage………...……page 98. Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………………….....page 299. Recommendations………………………………………………………………….........……page 31*

Report by:FRANCESCA SAVIGEPerformer – Theatre maker - [email protected]. 0409 891 617


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1. INTRODUCTION

In 2010 I was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship toinvestigate Shakespeare and Community Theatre. In March I began my twomonth stay in South Africa, working with the Ubom! Eastern Cape DramaCompany under the mentorship of Janet Buckland. I co-directed the Ubom!ensemble in a production of Romeo and Juliet, which toured to three regionalArts festivals as part of the South African Schools Festival series, and will remainin the company’s repertoire for the remainder of the year. Althoughpredominantly based in Grahamstown for the intensive rehearsal period, I alsohad the opportunity to travel with Ubom!, across the country to the KwaZulu-Natal, North-West, and Eastern Cape Schools Festivals. My research throughoutthis time explored ways to make Shakespeare in performance accessible acrosscultural, language and socio-economic divides, while also making the workdynamic and entertaining. The following report is an account of my experience,travels and what I learnt and gained as an artist.*The strength of the crocodile is in the water.

– South African proverb

I would like to thank the Churchill Foundation for this incredible opportunity. Ialso want to express my gratitude to those who have given me opportunities,support and encouragement in Australia, including the Bell ShakespeareCompany, Shake & Stir Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre Company, andDianne Eden at the Queensland University of Technology Creative IndustriesFaculty. Finally, I owe thanks to Janet and Andrew Buckland for their incrediblegenerosity of spirit and wisdom, Ubom! Eastern Cape Drama Company forwelcoming me like family, and the South African National Schools Festivals forincluding me in their program and sharing information.


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2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Name: Francesca SavigeAddress: 23 Spilsby Place, The Gap, Brisbane, 4061.Ph. 0409 891 617Occupation: Actor, director, theatre-maker, workshop facilitator.Project Description: Investigation of Shakespeare in Community Theatre under mentorship of JanetBuckland and Ubom! Eastern Cape Drama Company in Grahamstown, South Africa. March-May 2011.Project Highlights:* Six weeks directing intensive rehearsals and performances with community theatre artists at Ubom!,Grahamstown, including ten days touring with the Ubom! company across South Africa, from Grahamstownto Umtata, to Pietermaritzberg, Vanderbiljpark and Mafikeng, returning via Bloemfontein.* Involvement in three arts festivals around the country- The KwaZulu-Natal, North-West and Eastern-CapeSchools Festivals, and meeting with the festival director and manager of the South African National SchoolsFestivals, Neville Engelbrecht and Derralyn Short.* Participation in Mime classes with renowned physical theatre performer Andrew Buckland.* Observation of 3rd Year Directing Students at Rhodes University, and opportunity to run a workshop withthe students and give feedback for their directing projects under supervision and with guidance from JanetBucklandConclusions:*Knowledge, awareness, respect, open-mindedness , enthusiasm, and whole-hearted commitment, are keyingredients in developing a community performance.* Exciting and dynamic physical and vocal approaches, and current, relevant thematic choices are essentialfor a culturally inclusive Shakespeare production.* Use of familiar accent and even occasional translation of Shakespeare into the common language of thecommunity is welcomed and appreciated and contributes greatly to audience engagement.* Community Shakespeare performers need to be skilled not only physically and vocally but also need to bein tune with contemporary interests and issues to be able to include references and ideas which make thework accessible and relevant to community audiences.* Engaging regional youth audiences from non-English backgrounds with Shakespeare and theatre ingeneral is best achieved through storytelling devices, (myth, historical, personal). In particular, visualmodes are most successful, along with other non-language based exercises.I aim to implement my new knowledge and skills through all facets of my career. As a performer, I learnt byobservation of the incredibly skilled, committed and creative actors of the Ubom! company and otherperformance artists I was privileged to watch in action throughout my Fellowship stay. I look forward tohaving opportunities to utilize this inspiration with theatre companies and on stages in Brisbane andSydney.As a director and workshop facilitator I was guided and inspired by Janet Buckland and Andrew Buckland,and believe I have grown immeasurably in confidence and ability. I will apply this growth in my currentemployment as regional Arts Educator with the Bell Shakespeare Company, and as a freelance Shakespeareworkshop leader for the Queensland Theatre Company and Shake & Stir theatre company. I aspire to gainfurther responsibility in working with the Queensland University of Technology, hoping to one day beteacher of the 2nd Year Acting students’ Shakespeare Intensive and director of their major ShakespearePerformance. In my interactions with them, I will encourage the companies mentioned to expand theiraudiences where possible, to be more inclusive of communities that are remote, non-English as firstlanguage- speaking and socio-economically disadvantaged; I will disseminate and support performativemodes that are conducive to this spread of knowledge and entertainment.


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3. PROGRAM OF ACTIVITIES

Weeks 1 – 3 : 21st March – 8th April 2011

Grahamstown, Cape Town, Port ElizabethIntensive rehearsals of Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ with Ubom!*production meetings *script editing *training classes in voice, mime, dance and song*blocking *choreographing *table work, and on the floor. *Showings for staff andassociated artists *physical theatre viewing in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth.Weeks 4-5 : 11th April – 22nd April 2011

Grahamstown – Umtata – Pietermaritzbreg – Hilton – Vanderbijlpark – Mafikeng –Bloemfontein - GrahamstownTour of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ to the KwaZulu-Natal and North West National Schools ArtsFestivals.*packing and unpacking trailer *negotiating rehearsals on the road *move in to theatre*Set repairs and prop replacement *technical rehearsals – lighting design andimplementation *further script edits and re-rehearsals *running workshops for groupsof 20 or more secondary students, focusing on Shakespeare and story-telling.Week 6-7 : 23rd April – 1st May 2011

Grahamstown, East LondonUbom! Holiday. Free Time*Observation of Rhodes’ Directing students at work *Viewing of nine past performancesby the Ubom! company on DVD, specifically in poetry and heightened language*Discussions and analysis on contemporary intercultural theatre practice with JanetBuckland and Andrew Buckland.Week 7-8 : 2nd May – 17th May 2011

GrahamstownIntensive re-rehearsals of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ with Ubom, with specific focus onShakespeare’s language. Performance at the Eastern Cape Schools Festival.*leading voice and text workshops *re-blocking and editing scenes *detailed scene andcharacter work *workshop facilitation for Rhodes Directing students *workshopfacilitation for students at the Eastern Cape Schools Festival.


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4. MAP OF TRAVELS

Places travelled indicated in red.

* Romeo and Juliet Tour: Grahamstown to Pietermaritzburg for the KwaZulu Natal SchoolFestival at Hilton; via Vanderbijlpark to Mafikeng for the North West Schools Festival; returnvia Bloemfontein to Grahamstown.* Port Elizabeth to see ‘Mummenschanz’, avant garde visual/physical theatre from Sweden.* East London for Easter Break* Cape Town for physical theatre/mime – Cirque Du Soleil ‘Saltimbanco’


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5. JANET BUCKLAND

Janet Buckland is an internationally acclaimed theatre director, Artistic Directorof Ubom! Eastern Cape Drama Company, and Course Coordinator and SeniorLecturer in Directing at Rhodes University, Grahamstown. Skilled as a performer,dancer, director, teacher, dance-instructor, choreographer, arts administratorand fund-raiser, Janet has won numerous awards for her work. In 2008, Janetwas named South African Woman of the Year, both for the category of Arts,Culture and Communication, and also Overall Winner, acknowledging her wide-reaching work in the arts and community cultural development through Ubom!as well as the Amaphiko Township Dance Project. Janet is known as Mama J tothe Eastern Cape communities and the artists she works with, and hastransformed lives through her work with Ubom!, including my own, during myChurchill Fellowship experience under her mentorship.*

With Janet Buckland in Cape Town.


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6. UBOM! EASTREN CAPE DRAMA COMPANYUbom! is a non-profit theatre company established by Janet Buckland in 2003. Itcombines the skills of Theatre university graduates with the talents of disadvantagedperformers from the local community. According to Janet, this “lively mix inspires aunique creativity, which in turn generates a distinctive theatre style which speaks to thehearts and minds of both urban and rural audiences”. Janet believes Ubom! is “amicrocosm of South Africa, epitomizing the idea of reconciliation and integration”.Ubom’s vision is to create quality theatre and educational works which contributetowards an arts industry in South Africa by developing audiences and nurturingprofessionals and community groups.Ubom!’s program of community arts projects are specifically designed to:* address ‘poverty’ within the community, where poverty also refers to a lack ofresources and access to the arts;* upgrade performance skills to increase employability of disadvantaged artspractitioners;* develop a feasibility of the arts as a career choice and promote this idea;* celebrate the creative human spirit;* encourage debate, analysis and the search for solutions;* have voices heard that would otherwise have stayed marginalized;* holistically develop the younger generation, as arts-related activities provide theyouths with a way to develop their potential and creative self-expression;* conscientise the youth to pressing social and environmental challenges throughworkshops and participative theatre.“Our deepest commitment is to perform for the underprivileged, by bringing the arts tothem. Not only do we bring it to them but we also make them a part of it by training anddeveloping them” – Janet Buckland


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7. ROMEO AND JULIET – the journey from page to community stage

(extracts from diary)Saturday 19th March 2011Saturday night I saw Ubom's production of Door directed by Jori Snell. It was a moving, surreal piece ofwork inspired by Kafka's The Trial - the 'Before the Law' chapter. The piece was performed by the actorswho I will begin Romeo and Juliet rehearsals with on Tuesday, and they are an extremely talented group;incredibly vocally and physically present and skilled. I'm really looking forward to getting to know them andto start working with them. It was inspiring and encouraging to watch a vibrant physical theatre approachin the show, one which I hope to access within the Shakespeare work. So many stories are told through thebody. Physicality enhances language; whether it is reading with or against the spoken text, it revealscharacters' stories.Monday 21st March 2011Today I was invited to lunch with the director, Dion Van Niekerk. As it was a public holiday (Human RightsDay, soon, hopefully to become a world-wide Anti-Racism Day) many places were closed, so Diongenerously offered to make lunch for me. Over lunch, we spent a number of hours chatting enthusiastically,getting to know each other and sharing our ideas for Romeo and Juliet. We discussed casting ideas, designconcepts, rehearsal hours, rehearsal modes, approaches to vocalising and physicalising the text, andpractical issues such as the logistics of touring the show to the various school festivals.I learnt that I will be traveling across the country with the cast which is very exciting news - from KwaZulu-Natal (where Durban is) to the North West Schools festival, Mafikeng. I am quite thrilled that I will get to seemore of South Africa through the very-legit excuse of being on the job! Dion addressed the impact thattouring has on our design limitations, but after seeing 'Door', I'm confident our designer Barati, is up for thechallenge. Dion also has a background in design, a field I’ve always been fascinated by. Perhaps I’ll pick upsome tips along the way.One of the less welcome pieces of information Dion relayed is that our show is to be only 1 hour in length. Ithought we had an hour and a half! I can already feel the trauma of cutting more of Shakespeare's beautifulwords. However, I understand the limitation is helpful for student concentration. It also necessitatescreative problem-solving.It was particularly interesting to me to learn that not one of the 6 actors in the company is an English as firstlanguage speaker. The mother tongue of the actors is predominantly Xhosa, with one Zulu, one Tswana andone Afrikaans speaker in the mix. Dion informed me that the differing vowel sounds in most of the Africanlanguages actually means that some English sounds are not in the daily repertoire of these performers. Intalking of the first folio of Shakespeare’s works and his long spellings revealing elongated pronunciation ofwords, Dion responded: "How do you get an actor to extend a vowel sound when he has never made thatsound before in his life?" Good question. But rather than a concern, I think bi-lingual actors are an asset to aproduction which aims to reach a wide cultural spectrum, and this is one of the main reasons I am here toinvestigate Shakespeare in community theatre. The impact on the actors' exploration of Shakespeare'slanguage, and how we exploit this multi-lingual talent base are all things to unearth over the coming weeks.I sent an email to Dion a few weeks back, explaining how a multi-lingual Shakespeare production was one ofthe motivators for my Churchill fellowship application. The following is what I emailed him:In 2007 in Stratford Upon Avon, I saw the RSC's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by TimSupple and performed by Indian and Sri Lankan actors and physical theatre artists. The text was played in 7different Indian languages amongst the dominant English. I was unable to understand the foreign languages,however followed the story easily through the highly physical storytelling and expression. I saw the show with agroup of 5 other people I had met in the ticket line, a couple of whom were completely unfamiliar with the playor story. They also followed the plot and characters with ease. The show was utterly alive, playful, cheeky,rollicking, silly, sexy, and dangerous all at once. It was the only play I have ever witnessed a leaping standingovation for - at the show's conclusion, the ENTIRE audience leapt to their feet in unison to applaud the show. Itwas this energy, the physicality and playfulness of that production, that inspired me to explore a more physicaland culturally expansive approach to Shakespeare, hence working with Ubom!


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Tuesday 22nd March 2011First day with the cast. We met at the Masonic Hall, which is to be our rehearsal space for the next twomonths due to lack of space at Rhodes -a problem the world over? We began with introductions and I got toknow a little about Thami, Sisonke, Ilana, Nox, Tshego and Themba (probably incorrect spelling of thesemostly much-abbreviated names). I made a point of repeating the names back to each actor in an effort tolearn the correct pronunciation. Nox took great delight in saying her full name followed by a big grin inanticipation of my sorry attempt to repeat it. … How do you teach an Australian actor to pronounce Africansounds she has never before heard in her life?The magnificent plan that Dion had concocted to watch two movie versions of Romeo and Juliet as a gentleeasing into the project was seemingly thwarted by the power blackout that began the night before and wascontinuing with no approximate time to be rectified. (Andrew explained that after' 94 - the end ofapartheid- the towns expanded and number of people using electricity increased, yet rather than buildingnew power stations, the power became more widely distributed. As a result, blackouts became fairlyfrequent and in some cases deliberate, with public announcements of ordained times. But this one wasunexpected). We had heard that power was on at Rhodes so wandered the 10 minutes up to the Dramadepartment, only to discover no power. While we re-thought, the power flickered on, only to black out againbefore we had even re-grouped.Returning to plan A, we walked down the hill again towards Dion's place. The 8 of us huddled in Dion'slounge room around my laptop which was perched on a chair. By Act 2 of the somewhat tedious 70'sversion, the power finally returned and we shifted our viewing to the large (ex-Rhodes) projection screen. Along couple of hours, even for the most ardent Shakespeare fan. Fortunately, chips, sweets and soft drinksprovided by Dion and me , got us through to the end. Little comment from the actors on what they had seen.A bit of giggling at the hammy acting. A silent patient tension and curiosity over which role they are to becast in. Lunch break in the garden and on to Baz. Lights, volume, pace and colour lifted the energy of thegroup, and not a break all the way through. Complete engagement. Yet I was the only one crying at the endof the film. Again.Afterwards a discussion of what was enjoyed and why, leading into a sharing of ideas for our ownversion. Some ideas we are tossing about:-that the play (Shakespeare's moral revision of the original Italian story), reveals less to us about young lovethan it does about the futility of our "ancient grudge"s.-looking at tribal division, the city/rural divide/ xenophobia from the mass Zimbabwe immigration.-soldiers in the township, taxi violence, and the tradition of violence without question.-hip-hop vs pantzula dancing street groups-traditional vs modernised ideas (children vs parents?) - one of the actors told the story of some people intownships, continuing their tradition of animal slaughtering out the front of their homes, and theirneighbours with modern notions of animal cruelty finding this offensive (that's a tough one!)-using the actors to create scenes, eg the balcony, so it can move, it is alive and responds: looks to theaudience in cahoots, shakes head at Romeo, moves him farther away when he tries to kiss Juliet etc.-elements of technology, to engage the student audiences eg. facebook, twitter, skype....perhaps Friar John can't deliver the letter to Romeo because the power is out? Or the network down?There is a wonderful Anne Frank diary entry that I believe is especially relevant for our locally-flavouredversion of the play. I came upon it in the program for the 1993 Queensland Theatre Company production ofRomeo and Juliet (the beginning of my serious love affair with Shakespeare):"Anyone who claims that the older ones have a more difficult time here certainly don't realize to what extentour problems weigh down on us, problems for which we are probably much too young, but which thrustthemselves upon us continually, until, after a long time, we think we've found a solution, but the solutiondoesn't seem to be able to resist the facts which reduce it to nothing again. That's the difficulty in these times:Ideals, dreams, and cherished hopes rise within us, only to meet the horrible truth and be shattered".Anne Frank was Juliet's age when she wrote this.After the cast left, Dion and I had a meeting with our designer/stage manager Barati, a tall gorgeousBotswanian woman. Although Dion comes from a design background himself, he was careful to leave ideasand images open to allow Barati's own inspiration. Can't wait to see what she comes up with - she's a stylishwoman!


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Wednesday 23rd March 2011My first ever mime class this morning! With Andrew Buckland teaching. AMAZING. Why didn't we do this atdrama school? These skills would give me confidence in self-devised work. We begin with rolling up anddown the spine, precisely arriving down or up to counts of 8, 7, 6 decreasing to 2. Also working with breath.A warm up exercise in a circle: one person runs quickly to another, makes eye contact and jumps together,working again for precision. Another person is added, so that 4 people are now jumping together, usingperipheral vision to time the jump exactly. And so on until the whole group is jumping in unison.Isolation and co-ordination work followed. Moving hands, arms, shoulders in different ways, differentdirections, different speeds. Try flapping one hand up from your side to above your head, while you shakethe other hand from above your head, down to your waist. Lots of giggling. But also incredible focus fromthe cast. And me!Working with stop point, or suspension. I loved the idea that you enjoy the journey before coming to a stop-point or suspension. As opposed to pushing and forcing to the stop, which in me, often caused a littlerebound of energy. Some of these moves were like a refined, healthy version of some of my best efforts onthe dance floor.FLYING: a rotation of the shoulders, elbows, wrists, keeping the elbows up as the hands move through'shell', 'claw' and 'flower'.WATER RIPPLES: more flow and smaller movements through the arms and hands.ROPE-PULLING: too complicated to explain the hands crossing over and weight shifting... I'm just going tohave to practice this one to remember!After movement class, we did a full read of the pre-edited text Dion had found online, that was correlatingwith the cuts Dion and I had been making independently. It was a slow read, but the precision waspreferable to rushing through as it was clear the actors were alive in thought, though struggling with someof the phrasing. I had made a point of stressing the lack of performance-obligation in the first read, and itwas encouraging to witness this professional and curious approach. Smart actors. Brilliant.After lunch we began table-work, continuing to whittle the play down as we went, moving through the textscene by scene with the actors, aiming for total understanding, and a clear reading of each scene for sense. Ilove this work - glossary and dictionary out, and the pure joy of discovery and knowledge. Thank youShakespeare for the most beautiful expressions of thought and character, such richness in layers, wit andfilth. This is brain heaven for me. In no other mental pursuit am I so consistently engaged and inspired..Thursday 24th March 2011Today I have sore shoulders from Andrew's mime class!We began with voice class, Dion leading - Viewpoints and vocal viewpoints using lines from the prologue - awonderful way to get into the text and begin exploring the language.Then we continued with more text work, with Dion and I working simultaneously at two tables withdifferent actors for different scenes. I love watching their faces light up with understanding as we workthrough any unknown words or phrases for meaning. I remember the same sensation of joy andwonderment when I went on my first archeological adventures through Shakespeare. Not much haschanged. And I'm still unearthing treasures.In a break from the rigorous 'academic' work, I taught the group the Elizabethan song round that I learntfirst at the RADA Shakespeare course, and then again more recently at Shakespeare and Company in theU.S. The performers all have incredible vocal talent and were quick to learn the 4 differing parts to round,infused them with feeling, and then transformed them into a very funky, sexy beat-box/hip hop version. Ithink we'll be using this in the show!In the next break from table-work, I ran the "bus-stop" game with the cast, although transposing it to a taxi-shelter, as this is where we will be setting our Romeo and Juliet (street scenes) for the local flavor. "Busstop" is a game I normally play with young students. One character is at the stop, and another enters andtries (with or without dialogue as I decree) to get the other to leave the stop. Of course, this always leads tofart and vomit acting, which it also did with the R&J company, but acted brilliantly. We were all in hysterics


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at Sisonke's character's unfortunate upset stomach. And all the other choices made, particularly themoments of subtlety and stillness were equally as effective. Such a joy watching this exercise withprofessional actors, I would've paid money to see it.As I won’t be seeing the actors till next week, I've set them a homework task to learn two Shakespeareaninsults (from the 3 column list sheets so popular for Shakespeare workshops), as well as adding 2 physicalinsult gestures to accompany them.In the evening I went with Andrew to see his past student Athena Mazerakis perform at the Box theatre atRhodes. Her performance mode is physical theatre/dance/political theatre, I guess one might call it, and thispiece was an exploration of the issue of "corrective" rape of lesbians in this country. It was an extremelypowerful, brilliantly executed short work with beautiful moments of audience intimacy and humour. Oneparticularly clever device was when she put two Shox mini speakers down her trousers (yes, like balls) andmoved through the audience playing audio interviews with South African lesbians who have been victims ofthis heinous crime. Her immersion in multi-media was very engaging. Not only the ball-speakers, but also avideo camera was used in a variety of clever and fascinating ways. Even though the technical processeswere sometimes slow to establish, Athena maintained her audience captivation through pure presence. I amafraid of even conceiving utilizing such technology in any of my own (future/fantasized) works because ofmy seemingly ingrained ineptness. However, I almost always enjoy it when I see others doing so. I canimagine a one-woman show of mine with as much technology and cords involved going quite differently.Most likely it would end up being me convulsing expletives in a flaming labyrinth of electrical cords andswitches; buttons and levers crackling and popping and clicking while I melted into a fume of defusedenergy. Which some might consider entertainment.Monday 28th March 2011Late back from the weekend in glorious Cape Town. We got delayed at two road blocks on the road fromPort Elizabeth to Grahamstown, I couldn't tell exactly what kind of work they were doing, but one canassume it was road work. Quite lengthy delays, but I enjoyed good conversation with Andrew about theworkings of the Rhodes drama department, and the course options the students have on offer. It sounds likethe interest in theatre pursuits is more evenly spread here across the fields of interests: design, direction,choreography, stage management and technical theatre are strongly represented as opposed to a majorityinterest in acting which I had expected (well, of course that was my own world view). This must providegreat potential for collaborative works. He also told me about a couple of famous South African shows fromthe 1980's - 'Woza Albert', meaning "wake-up Albert" (Albert Luthili, the head of the ANC who had justpassed away) about the 2nd coming of Christ to South Africa - an important piece of political (protest)theatre in SA history. It was followed by the musical 'Serafina' in which Jesus raises up all the deadresistance heros. ...This info was re-written from scribbled notes on the drive back to G-Town, so possiblysome screwy details here...As I was too late in getting into town to see the cast before end of rehearsals, I asked Dion to get the actorsto each prepare 2 lines from the play - one which they think may be their character's loudest spoken line,and that which may be their softest. Though this is a non-organic approach, it is a great exercise to find thecharacter's total range and journey. It emphasises making bold choices and committing to them. I got thisone from RADA also, and love using it myself. Naturally, the choice of line may change throughoutrehearsals, but the risk-taking and strong-choice making should remain.Made a stir-fry when we arrived home, and did some voice class prep for tomorrow morning. I'll be runningthe morning workshop for an hour and a quarter. The company have designated morning training classes.Dion and I have asked for three of these time slots to specifically focus on voice and language for ourShakespeare, and also dance choreography for the show (though they'll be other times for this as well as itis integral to our hip hop vs pantzula (two households both alike in dignity/awesome-dance-moves concept.They also have yoga as well as mime weekly training classes. It would be wonderful to be in an ensemblesuch as theirs - working consistently all year on numerous productions, school and mainstage, touring a bit,teaching a bit, and training regularly, not to mention, performing at the National Arts Festival right here inGrahamstown. I'm going to get to it one day.


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Pantzula practice with RockyWEEK 2: March 29th - April 3rd 2011Tuesday morning, I ran a somewhat conventional voice warm-up for the cast, concentrating in the latter halfon facial articulators and tongue twisters to lead into the unfamiliar muscularity of Shakespeare’slanguage. We played with the Shakespearean insults I had asked them to prepare. At first this was anexercise in memory (as it usually is), but gradually the actors let go into the words. This actually happenedquite rapidly after I asked them to accompany their insult with a physical gesture, whether it be a knownrude gesture, or a made up one. Not only were the gestures hilariously creative and brilliantly executed, butalso, the actors truly began to relish the language in firing the insults to each other. The mind/body/voiceconnection never ceases to amaze me. I think the actors were enjoying the exercise as much as I was. Orthey were acting really well. Or both.We then looked at the opening scene of the play, incorporating the idea of gesture. I am hoping this can befurther welded into the dance-off beginning for a sense of flow. Dion had already begun blocking scene 1, sothey showed me the work so far (very exciting), then we worked to include the prologue into the sequence,dividing up the lines amongst the cast, with choral work and movement. We -Dion and I- like the idea thatthe fighting is about to begin in the street when the actors suddenly break the fourth wall and reveal to theaudience what is about to happen. Then they return to the point they froze in and start the dialogue from“Do you bite your thumb at us?” The thumb-biting will (fingers crossed) be the final movement of the dance-off.The hip-hop choreography was next on the agenda, and it was uber cool to watch the moves unfolding sofar. Big shame I missed the first session, as I fear I’ll never be able to catch up, and never be able to bringthese specific skills back home to my country’s dance floors, sorry Winston, sorry Frankie. We spent thesecond half of the day blocking the second half of play. I had happy moments to dominate whilst Dionemployed his superior design skills to notate the set arrangements as we blocked them. His perspectivedrawing is fiercely adept. It’s like watching the birth of tetris. The walls of crates are becoming an excitingplayground for the show, with a multiplicity of arrangements.Wednesday morning’s mime class was a particular treat, having seen some of the very skills we werepracticing, on stage on the weekend in Cape Town. We revised isolation, (even down to moving differentshoulders, elbows, wrists, fingers in different directions at different rhythms = brain implosion); pulling ona rope, flying and swimming – who knew my shoulders were so unfit? -learnt walking (on the spot, bring onthe moonwalk), and wall/where’s the exit? (I think there is a more technical term for this, maybe counter-point thingy-me-jig?) movement. SOOOooo much fun. And frustration. At least I can tell when I’m stuffing itup completely. That’s the first important step towards brilliance, I’m sure.The rest of Wednesday involved basic blocking to finish off the play, although we postponed the scenes withfights until Thursday as Matt, Ubom’s US intern, is coming in to do combat choreo.Wednesday evening, Janet was sadly under the weather, but not so sadly for me, as I scored her ticket to see‘Desperate First Ladies’ by Pieter-Dirk Uys (And his chorus-line of Goddesses, Gargoyles and Grannies).Pieter is the Dame Edna of South Africa, the first man to make drag famous here, and despite his bitingpolitical satire, survived performing through the numerous political manifestations over the past 30 years


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or so, by making everyone laugh with his absolute brilliance in wit and craft. Andrew prepped me on thisbackground as we drove up to the Rhodes theatre. I knew I was in for a treat as it seemed the whole ofGrahamstown had come out to see the show. The foyer was buzzing, and it became apparent the show wassold out, and their was a large hopeful crowd on a waiting list standing by. I felt rather chuffed but also alittle guilty as I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to appreciate the humour as much as a local would.Quite the opposite. I laughed uproariously with the rest of the audience, and also experienced a condensedsocio-political and cultural lesson in the most joyous way possible. There were a couple of jibes at Australiawhich made me chuckle. My favourite was a questioning of why Australians look down on South Africa forthe treatment of indigenous populations…. “Look how many Aboriginal people are left, compared toAfricans”. Amidst the laughter, there were also a few moments were I was moved to tears. This is clearly aman who loves his country deeply, and embraces the vast array of people who live here, with all their faultsand quirks. Politics, humour and magnificent skill in acting.: a totally fulfilling evening at the theatre.Thursday – fight club!Matt does a range of work with the company, but has a special interest and skills in stage combat from histraining in America, so it is a blessing to have him available to us. There is no stage combat here as a subjectin South Africa at universities and drama schools, as far as I can discover. Dion, who loves his karate, isconsidering seeking a grant to train in it, which I think is a marvelous idea. And a necessity. The lack ofcombat training first came to my attention when Sisonke fell plonking on to his knees with “I defy youstars”. I could hear Scottie Witt (QUT, QTC, Bell Shakespeare) in my ear, saying: “lower your centre ofgravity first” and Michael Toomey (Shakespeare & Co) with his poignant anecdotes of older actors withknee issues from youthful, repetitive self abuse whilst “in the moment” of just such a physically self-violentaction. It was quite shocking to realise this kind of training is virtually non-existent here, making myShakespeare & Co winter seem beautifully indulgent and making me feel extremely privileged for my yearsof indoctrination with Scottie and Nikki at QUT. I have taken for granted the pleasure of working with Scott,Nikki and Nigel in professional engagements since graduating. And thank the union for making it law. Thefoundation I’ve been given has no doubt saved me from numerous injuries and long-term pain. I ampassionately hopeful that this kind of training and skills development and appreciation takes off here.At a philosophical level, it is intriguing that a society with a self-acknowledged reputation for violence hasnot included this in the study of performance craft. “We don’t need to be taught how to fight – this is Africa”joked one of the cast members when I asked them about it. So on Thursday we worked on the scenes withfights and dances in them. Both choreographers- Matt for fight, and Nomtsibisi for hip-hop- brought superbdisplays of pizzazz to our story. The more I work in the industry, the more I appreciate the specialized skillsof others and the importance of a professional attitude in embracing help from those who really know theirfield, for the ultimate benefit of performer, director, story, show and audience. This goes for all elements ofdesign as well. Leave it to the pros.By the end of Friday we had worked through all the scenes in terms of blocking, including marking throughthe fights and the Capulet party hip-hop dance. We are still waiting on times for our two dancechoreographers to work simultaneously on the dance-off opening. The dance-off is integral to establishingtwo houses “both alike in dignity”, and conflict for the beginning fight scene: “do you bite your thumb at us,sir?” Monday maybe we will get to this crux.After a hard week of rehearsals, a debrief over a drink was necessary

Frankie & Dion - Directors hard at work.


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Saturday morning, I went with Janet and Andrew to breakfast at café Devine, a newly opened place in town.We met Anna there, a lovely American lady who works in the journalism department at Rhodes. Anna andAndrew both told me about the local artist Sally Scott whose work in oils and pastels is on display at thecafé. Sally is evidently a prolific artist, working also in sculpture and textiles and her recent work with thedrama students at Rhodes involved shoes: ‘The Red Shoe Project’: Students made two pairs of shoes fromvarious textiles of fabrics that they found, bought, created. 1 of the shoes represented their inner self, whilethe other, their projected self. The teachers then presented with this array of inspired shoes, tried to putthem into matching pairs. After this phase, the students then corrected the teachers’ pairings. The last phaseinvolved the teachers trying to guess which pair belonged to which student. Finally, the students andteachers all met together to discuss the process and discoveries. This was an end of first term exercise andapparently was a profound and revelatory experience for both teachers and students, and a beautiful way toget to know each other better. The project has had a variety of manifestations outside the university world,exploring self-knowledge and the sharing of stories and experience. Anna said she had taken the workshopafter her divorce and it sounded like an incredibly powerful journey and story.Saturday afternoon – Mummenschanz!At the airport on the way back from Cape Town on Monday. Andrew had been recognized by a lady in thecheck-in who said she’d seen many of his shows. Once on board the plane, she approached us again, thistime informing Andrew that she is the marketing manager for Mummenschanz, which is currently touringSouth Africa, and offered him any complimentary tickets he may wish to use. This was rather lovely andfortuitous as a trip to Port Elizabeth to see Mummenschanz was already on the wish-list for the weekend.Andrew had followed this up and managed to organise tickets for myself and the Ubom company to go tothe show in PE this afternoon and he hired a shuttle bus to get us there and back. He and Janet booked theirown tickets for the Sunday show. So we all met at Rhodes and piled into a combie bus. I was hoping wecould maybe use the opportunity to run Romeo and Juliet lines, but only the lovers committed to running ascene or two before the singing took over. The combie converted to a choir bus. Songs from past showsmade the trip there and back swift and joyous.

The singing busMUMMENSCHANZ “The Masters of Make-Believe and Illusion – the show itself was very sweet but perhapsa little dated. The promotional material reads: “Using no language or music, Mummenschanz transcends allbarriers of culture with their groundbreaking and quirky theatre style. By using familiar materials, such ascardboard boxes, rolls of toilet paper, masking tape, refuse bags, etc., they create ingenious costumes andexpressive masks that change into fascinating and funny creatures on stage”. It seems they have beenperforming the exact same show since the seventies, and while it was avant-garde then, it left me wanting alittle more. Music, in particular. A soundscape was what I craved. Music and percussive sound to punctuatemoments would have made a massive contribution, in my inexpert opinion. And surely would not havehindered in any way the show’s transcendence of cultural barriers. Having said that, I was happilyentertained. A big part of my enjoyment was watching the glee of small children as they watched andoccasionally interacted with the show. When a giant malleable rock rolled out into the front row, I loved theresponse of the small boy who bashed vehemently at the soft plastic with his tiny fists as though he wasfighting for his dear life.Back in Grahamstown after the show, Ilana was driving, and asked if I’d like a tour of the township aseveryone was getting dropped home. No hesitation. I had seen the small houses in the distance across thevalley at the edge of town and had been longing for just such an opportunity. As we drove up the hill to thetownship, the roads became less polished though still formalized by structure and street signs. The


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township here is well established and more welcoming in appearance than the millions of shanty houses Ihave seen outside Johannesburg and Cape Town. I’m not certain that this means the poverty is any lessconsuming, but perhaps the continuity and history makes it less confronting. I don’t know. We passed ahouse that was bursting with people. Nox informed me it was probably a ceremony, and that possibly a cowhad been killed for the occasion. Many people were out and about on the roads, talking, heading home afterthe day’s work, waiting for taxis to go places. As ‘taxis’ here resemble the combie that we were travelling in,we were occasionally hailed. Thami thought we ought to take advantage of this and had the brilliant idea touse Ilana, Robbie (Ubom education manager) and myself as the white clowns. We were prompted to call outas we passed groups using the taxi lingo: “town, town town, xseula cee cee” or words to that effect,summoning passengers aboard. Hysteria abounded as the waiting potential passenger would look up to seethree whities in the combie driving through the township, first open-eyed in shock, then in a broad grin andhuge embodied laugh.On Sunday, I met with Dion to make a plan for the weeks’ rehearsals. Dion’s vision involves breaking theplay into three segments or acts, and working through the scenes of each act separately then running thewhole Act to link it with transitions between scenes. Very efficient and clever. So we divvied up the scenesso that we could both work simultaneously in two different spaces, for the morning, maximizing our timewith the actors. Then in the afternoons we will come together in the larger venue (the Rhodes theatre thisweek) and work through the scenes in order. It is great that we can now start detailing as the actors have astrong grasp on the story and characters. There is still more room for ease with language but as theybecome sure of meaning, it is now a matter of flow and finding the same level of energy that they have whenspeaking in their own language. My favourite mis-quote from the week (yes, I feel a little guilt at giggling atthis): “…From forth the fatal lions of these two foes…”.

Director!WEEK 3: Monday 4th April - Friday 8th April, 2011The week began with passing donkeys on the walk down to Rhodes. Made me smile as the cast was teasingSisonke, calling him donkey, and this is how I was assisted in learning the pronunciation of his name. A goodmethod for learning languages? Rhyme. It helps with Shakespeare too. The first Friar John/Romeo scene isalmost entirely in rhyming couplets, and of course the lovers sonnet follows the rhyming pattern ABABCDCD EFEF GG. Easy to learn!We rehearsed in the main Rhodes theatre this week as it is university holidays, the students are on holidaysand venues have freed up. Our 3 Act plan was mostly successful, especially in finding smooth ways to movethe set as part of the action, with only a few re-schedules to work around our dance instructors. It was greatto see them working on pantzula and hip-hop. Again, I only wish I could joined in. Pantzula apparently(according to google) means “to waddle like a duck / walk with protruded buttocks. It is a township dance,used to express themselves and also a way of life. It expressed their lives as a reflection of the violence ofthe township culture. The dance set them free from parental dominance and it gave them freedom withoutprejudice”. It involves tap and glide movements and has some aspects similar to the gumboot dance.Dion and I thought it would be fun to have an homage to West Side Story in the Pantzula piece, so I taughtRocky the move I love so much from the musical, and he converted it into the funky Pantzula stlye and it hasbecame the punctuating finale moment to the dance off. Tre cool.A typical week 3. Some comfort in this lack of cultural difference in this regard. A little more pressure, a lotmore stress. Moodiness amongst the cast. The occasional snap. But I’m learning quickly that this group hasbeen together for so long that they have developed their own way of dealing with issues. These moods,these snaps, are short though sharp and pass quickly into resolution. In fact, it seems their method is quiteefficient. I’m certain now that I am the one who is most confronted in these instances. During one mini-


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crisis, I asked “is everyone okay? Do you want to talk about it?” (bearing in mind that half of these momentsoccur in Xhosa so I hardly have a clue what’s going on, just lots of intense clicking sounds and what I canread from body language and gesture – which is almost enough!). And Ilana replied: “Don’t worry, this is justwhat we do”.Thursday was more of the same blocking and detailing and transitions and dance-off practice.Friday was a hectic morning, still trying to detail, implementing new line cuts and not quite getting througha full run before the showing. The showing went well, and served its’ purpose in highlighting what needs tobe done now. Also, Janet gave us excellent notes to work with, many of which were thoughts we’d hadourselves, so it was encouraging that we must be thinking in the right direction. It ran for and hour and ahalf – oops! So more drastic line cuts to be done – brutal dismissals of whole scenes. The pace needs seriousattention towards the end, which will be aided by the cuts and some stylistic changes to unify from theopening to the end. Lots of other small language based notes I took, but overall, Dion and I were pretty darnimpressed that the actors got through it, and all they had achieved in less than 15 days rehearsal, for most ofthem, on their first ever Shakespeare. Lots to do before the first performance at the KwaZulu Natal schoolfestival next Thursday, but absolutely wonderful that we will have two more weeks after this tour, tocontinue refining and playing with the show.

Romeo, Juliet and Nurse in rehearsalWEEK 4: Monday 11th April, 2011Returning from the weekend away – on a houseboat in Port Alfred - I felt a little sheepish for havingabandoned Dion and the cast. The notes from Janet had been largely implemented on Friday afternoon andSaturday but there were still a few touch-ups left to do. I felt sad for the cast losing so many more lines afterthe show ran for 1 hr 30 on Friday and it’s meant to be 1 hr. We knew this was possibly going to be the case,but in a way, the fact that the actors were working up to now with a fuller text, has helped them find theessence of their characters. Again, the beauty of Shakespeare’s art is that the character is in the language.That's how I justify and cope with the guilt of dishing out line cuts so late in the process.We worked on our new party sequence, a stronger stylized approach with a heartbeat underpinning thewhole scene, including the lovers sonnet, and concluding with a thumping beat from Tybalt as he withdrawswith “this intrusion shall, now seeming sweet, convert to bitterest gall”.We staggered through the last through scenes to implement new tighter blocking, bringing the action muchfurther forward on the stage, and reigniting the heartbeat underscore from the moment Romeo hears thenews of Juliet’s death, speeding up through to his arrival at the tomb and slowing down until his death, andthen Juliet’s heartbeat taking over till her real death. We even have some wicked drumming from Ilana toaccompany Tsegho’s brilliant witchdoctor apothecary.After these final changes, we only had time for a top-and-tail run to cement the transitions and blockingchanges. The cast were given an early finish to go and make preparations for leaving on tour tomorrow.Dion and I used the rest of the afternoon to get the piece of wood we use for Juliet’s bed and tomb scenechopped smaller, a mission we felt very self-satisfied about achieving. Then our own time for packing. Being


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very restrained with my shoes for this journey, only three pairs.Tuesday 12th April 2011After a successful 1hr 10min run (well, 1hr 16, but I‘m sure it WILL BE 1hr 10 at the most), we packed upthe set and props and transferred them from the Masonic hall to the driveway behind the theatre at Rhodeswhere our trailer was waiting to be loaded. The complex task of fitting the R&J set as well as the “Door” setwas aided by Dion’s friend Nicky who is massively experienced in production touring and is a professionalset fitter-inerer. The arrangement was notated and photographed for repeating the process on tour.Ubom! Company management came out to farewell us then we set off on the road. We have a cleverlystructured and fair rotating driving/navigating schedule as well as an elaborate chore list delegatingresponsibilities for each day. I started up front with Dion driving. Obviously my exceptional navigationalability was not required on this first leg as it was familiar terrain. Dion and I tried to remember some Abbalyrics for a sing-along but failed miserably and decided to discuss the play instead.The morning’s run had gone very well. First time in full costume with all the props. Only one or two of thenew changes and script cuts caused slight hiccups, but mostly the play is buzzing along with strongperformances, a clear trajectory and good pacing. A couple of cues still to tighten up, and line security couldstill be improved, but I’m still impressed with what we’ve achieved and am certain the positivity will becontagious enough to lead to success.Driving a shuttle bus (there are 9 of us traveling) with the massive trailer behind, is actually a little scary,especially on some of the windy roads. And of course, it began to rain the moment we left Grahamstown.Manouvering in petrol stations and in small streets is particularly stressful for all, and reversing is not themost desirable option. While the day’s travelling was mostly surprisingly quiet – no singing or even muchchit-chat, (perhaps they are exhausted for some reason?) the energy picked up as we neared the stop-overdestination for the night. We entered Umthatha in high spirits nearing hysteria, which soon dissipated as wegot progressively more lost. Umthatha (or Umtata) is the birthplace of Madiba – Nelson Mandela.Consequently their are a vast number of bed and breakfasts in the town. And consequently, there arehundreds and hundreds of boards advertising these bed and breakfasts, none of which are significantly eye-catching (especially not in poorly-lit streets) or useful in terms of directions. After stopping and askingdirections several times, and after finding signs for our “Brats B&B” (Brats? Interesting) that were notremotely helpful, and after some seriously difficult trailer negotiations, the general mood became somewhathighly strung. An hour after arriving in the (smallish) town, we finally found our rest stop for the evening,unloaded the bus, checked in, went to bed. I had an horrific dream about a tsunami. Rising waters,eradicated landscape, bare and bleak survival. I’m going to disregard Freud and blame the incessant waterfeature outside of my room.Wednesday 13th April, 2011We all convened in the B&B lounge for a hearty breakfast. Most well-rested, certainly all with goodappetites.

Breakfast in Umtata(L-R: Themba, Dion, Sisonke, Ilana, Matthew, Thami, Tshego, Nox)After stopping to get tape to secure the tarp over the set, we were on the road again, and sure enough the


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bus was resounding with song in a matter of minutes. These voices. These harmonies. I wonder if this is onlypossible in an ensemble that has been working together for as long as these guys.I typed blog entries to the joyful music, frequently gazing up at the magnificent landscape, while Nox andSisonke took turns at using my camera to take photographs. I knew I had to give them notes from the runyesterday, but postponed it as long as possible so I could continue enjoying the bus choir. They practiced thesongs from R & J so that counts as work.Smooth sailing quickly turned to rough fare as the afternoon unfolded. And sadly, no camera battery left todocument the dramas! After having re-routed a couple of times trying to find a faster road, then missing aturnoff and getting lost (subsequently invalidating our short-cut), the rain started to come down so fiercelythat we had to pull over to the side of the road until it settled. I was wondering about the condition of the setin the trailer under such a downpour, especially as the wooded doors for the troupe’s other show ‘Door’, arein danger of swelling when wet, rendering them dysfunctional in performance. Also, the groovy treatmentthat Barati put on our crate walls is at great risk of being destroyed by the hectic rain. But no-one wastalking about it. I suspected that the silence on the subject meant that we were all seriously concerned.Some beastly thunder and snaps of lightening. Misty outside upon the heath.After some time, we were back on the road, driving carefully through the drizzle. I chatted with Matt, ourfight choreographer and crew for the tour. Answering my question of how he came to be here, he told mehis story – his parents are South African, but moved to the US when he was very young, so he refers tohimself – and has a cool hat with the title- as HALFRICAN (say it with an American accent). Matt finished histheatre degree last May and wanted to spend a year volunteering, and combining that with visiting hissecond home. As his father had studied at Rhodes, he sent out an email asking around if there was anytheatre-related volunteering he could do at the university. The email eventually found its way to Sarah, thecompany manager at Ubom!, where it was replied to enthusiastically. Now, Matthew is spending a year inGrahamstown as an intern for the company, teaching a community theatre group, writing and directingtheir shows, as well as running workshops at schools around town. And of course, being the wonderful fightchoreographer for Romeo and Juliet.At last we made it to Hilton college, an hour or so late for our tech call. We unloaded the trailer andsurveyed the damage. The R&J walls need to be re-treated as the rain had washed all the paper and glue off.The doors, while remaining mostly dry, have several wheels broken off and some other chipping damageand need to be generally, cleaned, sanded, beaten and screw-drivered back into form. The glass on the over-head projector is shattered. While they teched Door (coping remarkably well with the mangled doors) Iwrote a list of necessities and liased with Barati, and also asked around the school for whatever assistancepossible. At least we have the morning tomorrow to make repairs before workshops begin at 2pm. I alsoworked through R&J scene by scene with ideas for lighting as I observed what its available to us.R & J tech – our super technician Tina had lots of great ideas and was very quick with moving through ourcues, but just when we thought the days woes were over, the combie got stuck in the mud as we tried to gohome to a well-earned rest. Tragic. Innumerous attempts and different tactics. I wandered about hopelessly,thinking who to phone, trying to find help or at least things to put under the wheels for grip, wondering ifmy adding to the pushing throng would make any difference. Shivering in the rain in a quandary. With Dionbehind the wheel, the cast were fierce in the muck, pushing and yelling instructions, sighing, swearing, andpushing again. Ilana fell in the mud and demonstrated a gracious sense of humour. All the while it rained. Allthe while I wished I had camera battery….After half an hour of admirable effort and persistence by the cast, three more able bodies (the next 2 guysteching their show) had heard the grinding engine and our bootless cries and had come to help. At last, thecombie emerged from the mud and on to safe ground. We departed in joyous revelry at the success allsmattered in various degrees of muddyness, with Dion and I at the lower spectrum, and Ilana taking thecake. Of mud.Thursday 14th April, 2011Team Pietermaritzburg and Team Hilton set to work early. While team Pietermaritzburg travelled to thetown of their title and sourced repair materials, tools, and an over-head projector, Matt, and Themba and Iset to work at the Hilton venue fixing the eroded walls. Fixing walls is becoming a field of expertise for meon tours, but this was a new feat of creativity. There was no way we were going to be able to replicate therough beauty that Barati had created on the walls, yet almost anything was going to be an improvement ontheir dismal state after the rain’s abuse.Dion and I shared our morning of victories via sms: Got paper and glue for the walls from the schoolprinting room! Borrowed an OHP for the show! New wheels for the doors! Cable-ties to piece our wall backtogether! Sandpaper! Screw-drivers! Roibos tea to stain the walls!!!


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Fixing a wall where the rain got in...After a productive start to the day, the workshops began. As a last-minute addition to the workshop line-up,I was given the only remaining venue, which was a lecture theatre. Fortunately pre-warned, and notinclined to give a lecture, I had adapted exercises to work within limitations. My workshop blurb (inspiredby the other Ubomies):LIFE OUT LOUD: Have you got a story to tell? The truth? A myth? A lie? A dark secret? A fantasy? Aromance? A tale of remorse or revenge? Or just a silly tale to make your friends laugh? Whether you want towrite it or say it (or sing it or dance it!), there is a story in all of us that needs to get out. Discover the playinside you and share it out loud!I had about twenty students in each of the two workshops today. As a warm-up created an thunderstormwith hands clicking, whooshing, patting, thumping. Then an adaptation of 'stop/go', that could be done attheir lecture-desks. This one was still a winner even with the variation. Then we moved on to one-wordstories, alphabet stories, and telling their own tales with cue lines to establish structure. A few students readtheirs out loud. The recurring themes of love and struggle were fascinating. Two of my favourites:1.) “For as long as she could remember, the town that she lived in had always had the usual routines thatbored her to death. Then one day a new boy came to live on her block and she thought he was veryhandsome. This caused her to change her look completely, just for the boy to take notice of her. Everyonewas amazed because they thought she was totally different. And then, to everyone’s surprise they fell somuch in love and life was never the same for her. She wished she could take him to the moon so that shecould be satisfied that he was for her alone. Finally, to her surprise, it was just only a dream”.2.) ”For as long as he could remember, the town that David lived in had always been an underdog. Then oneday gold was discovered. This caused dispute among the residents. Everyone was entitled to it, so theyassumed. And then to everyone’s surprise it was inextractable. Finally, the town clerk decided to sell theland to foreigners and the town was once again poor.”Finally we finished with contemporising fairy tales, which the learners (the term used here rather than‘students’) presented to the rest of the group in any theatrical mode they wished. My favourite of these wasa contemporary Goldilocks, presented as a news report. Goldilocks was a drug addict from Soweto whobroke into a house in Johannesburg. The rich family had gone to play golf. First Goldilocks the thief stole thefancy shoes, then she stole money, then she jumped into the Astin Martin to take it, but because of her habit,she fell asleep in the car. When the family came home and found her, they called ADT security and police.In the evening, our first showing of Romeo and Juliet was a hit! The students (maybe almost a thousand??)went CRAZY when we began with the loud music, the taxi fight over which music to play- hip-hop orpantzula, leading into the dance off. The actors were amazing at keeping the energy and sailing through thefirst half. A few technical issues with the party scene, and the second half had some pacing issues, butoverall, we were very pleased. Big applause from the audience and even a couple of enthusiasts giving astanding ovation. The show still needs more cuts as a few lines had crept back in, and we discovered that theraucous laughter (especially every time Romeo and Juliet kiss) is adding at least 5 minutes on to the show.Fortunately we will have a little bit more time before the next performance to tighten things up. Worthy ofcelebration.


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Ubomies at Hilton Schools FestivalFriday 15th April, 2011On arrival at Hilton we set to work on door-repairs. 9 artsy-types could not figure out how to make the drillwork, and were suitably embarrassed when the handyman came to the rescue and demonstrated that thedrill began to drill when it was pressed to the surface it was required to drill (well, how were we supposedto know that?) When my moral support no longer seemed effectual or necessary I allowed myself to bedistracted by the monkeys in the avocado trees.

9 theatre types with a screwdriver can’t fix a doorThe performance of ‘Door’ went very well. It was a much quieter audience response as the show is quiteabstract, but they were obviously entertained and intrigued enough to be extremely well behavedthroughout. I had been enlisted to stand-by in the OP wings in case of any saucer-breakages that mightoccur within the show, but luckily my services were not required, and I got to enjoy the show from a goodvantage point.My last workshop was great, being more comfortable with the exercises and what to expect in response, Ihad lots of fun. All done and packed up, we went to watch another show at the festival called Big Boys Don’tDance. Energetic, funny and exciting show challenging perspectives of male dancers. Some very very cooldancing. The students loved it and so did we.We all remained in good spirits on the trip back to the guesthouse despite discovering the OHP glass broken(going over a speed bump? Someone opened the back door accidentally?) We’ve solved so many problemsso far already that we handled this one breezily. And the shows for round one of the tour were done andsuccessful. So, sundowners. We danced the night away in the guesthouse dining-hall, grooving to a funkySouth African mix pumping out from my laptop.


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Saturday 16th April, 2011Travel to Vanderbijlpark, riding shotgun with Ilana.- or Illama as she is now affectionately known- behindthe wheel. In telling me of her hometown, Stellenbosch (famous wine region, "very white"), she told me thestory of how she and her best friend from childhood (the housemaid’s daughter) were unable to go to thesame primary school during the apartheid era so her mother, started up a secret garage school for mixedrace education. Ilana’s mum would go and collect students from the township each morning. And bringthem back to the garage school for some thorough home-schooling. When they went to high school, Ilanaand her best friend parted ways – apparently it was/is typical of Stellenbosch socialisaton that one mostlyhangs out with the one ‘type’ of people (or colour). Indeed, it is possibly still true of a large part of thepopulation, this lack of ‘mixing’. The theatre world, and Ubom especially, is an exception, far from the rule.Another great story Ilana told me was of a tour Ubom did a couple of years ago. They were travelling with abroken left indicator, knowingly. When they were pulled over by police, they feigned surprise at the faultyindicator and set about pretending to try and make it work. As they did, they began singing some Xhosasongs that they performed in some of their shows. The Xhosa police were so entertained by the Afrikaan’sIlana and the Sri Lankan intern travelling with the company singing in Xhosa, that the group were let offwith only a warning.The following year, touring again, the company was stopped at a road block, when the same too Xhosapolice came running towards them and jumped into the combie, saying “It’s you again, we knew it!!” andasking them to sing for them again. Very sweet story.

With students at the end of KwaZulu-Natal Schools Festival at HiltonSunday 17th April, 2011An uneventful (thank goodness) drive to Mafikeng. After settling into rooms, Dion and I met to discuss thefurther proposed cuts and changes to the text. Then it was braai (traditional South African barbeque) time!!Monday 18th April, 2011At breakfast we served up the script cuts, which were taken gracefully. Then we miraculously arrived earlyat the venue – the Mafikeng International School- for our tech time. Unfortunately the crew were late, butwe passed the time with set repairs. Back to wall fixing, this time with Tshego’s assistance, now a breezedue to past experience.Then tech rehearsal for R&J. Not as much variety available with our lights this time so we’ll have less flashycolour range and mood changes. There is also an unfortunate long gap between stage and audience so it willbe interesting to see how this affects the students’ response.


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Technical rehearsal of Romeo and Juliet (the wedding)The festival organizers Neville and Derralyn mentioned to me that English literacy is lower here at thisfestival, as some of the students come from more remote and under-privileged towns. They warned me thatoften students will nod when you ask if they understand the given task, only to discover down the track thatthey hadn’t comprehended, usually due to a language barrier. I had a great chat with this pair, responsiblefor the running of these regional schools festivals. They said they had researched and had found no otherprograms like this in the world; only a Victorian schools fest in Australia coming close to something like it. Itwould be a fabulous if we did have an equivalent National program of schools festivals. It would not only bebrilliant to expose the millions of students to more arts experiences, but it would also be an incredibleopportunity for arts employment. Very inspiring…. If only I had the motivation and business-mind fororganizing such a huge happening. Instead I will inform people who do!Tuesday 19th April, 2011The morning rehearsal at the Guesthouse, working in the new cuts, was successful - a productive use oftime. Then we headed in to the festival for lunch. The cast went to see a show, while Dion and I returned tocollect the drum that had been left behind which was necessary for Nox’s workshop.We each had 2 workshops in the workshops. I experienced what Derralyn and Neville had spoken about,when after giving instructions for an exercise I was assured that they understood, only to discover laterwhen I was checking in on the groups, that one or two were re-explaining in their own language to thestudents who hadn’t followed. I have realized that in my excitement and enthusiasm, I tend to talk quitequickly during workshops. Fortunately this festival I had scored a space with room to move. A geographyclassroom, it was still quite small for twenty-odd students to play drama games in, but infinitely preferableto a lecture theatre. With explanations and language difficulties the workshop was slower moving, but muchmore physical and fun. One word and one sentence stories were challenging concepts, but acting out theirstories brought creative responses. Exercises such as zip-zap, I got you a gift, What are you doing?, knife andfork, and snap shots, were all well-received. Zip zap especially, when I added the competitive element ofelimination.I acquired a couple of young fans…

The evening’s performance of ‘Door’ went extremely well. The audience response was more vocal. Even ifthey were just as confused by the abstract style and lack of linear narrative, the students at this festivalseemed more able to let go of the need for those things. And the actors did a beautiful job. Still no breakageof saucers, just a great viewing position in the wings for me.


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Wednesday 20th April, 2011Morning workshop. We had even been warned of potentially hung-over students and most definitely late-comers for the early start. The latter was certainly evident, and I suspect some students didn’t bother toshow at all (or perhaps it was because 2 schools had left the festival early or pulled out last minute orsomething). As a result, I combined my workshop group with Tshego’s as she was based in the room next tomine. Together we had around 20 learners and shared the time alternating exercises. I particularly lovedthe framework for documentary drama, surfing TV channels and coming across a soapie or a sports show,the news, cooking show, talk show, advertisement etc. So each group was allocated a form to express theirideas, and each had their moment in the spotlight.Then moving to the theatre, the show before R&J ran very late, and the performers followed it with anunprogrammed Q&A, which made us go on stage almost an hour and a half late. While the Q&A did sayuseful things about theatre etiquette that probably helped us in having such a respectful and attentiveaudience, they delayed us immensely and the students were disrupted in their scheduling, as were we. Theshow went very well, despite all this. I had made mention in all my workshops about the kissing in theproduction and told the students that if they wanted to find out what happens in the story that Irecommended not screaming and hooting and laughing whenever there was a moment of physical intimacy.I’m not sure if this made the difference, but they were markedly more well-behaved in this respect than theHilton student audience.After the delays, we had a mad dash to pack up and get back on the road. We left the school at 3pm andarrived at our B&B after 11pm. All very tired. Only a splash of rain on this stretch and mostly we dozedwhen we could, or tried to.

Packing the trailerThursday 21st April, 2011Last day on the road. I did first shift as navigator up front with Dion. I learnt a little bit of South Africanhistory as we passed through the Free State. This province is where the Boers set up camp separate fromthe British. Signage everywhere in Afrikaans. In a roadside shop, I was spoken to in Afrikaans (I presume),which then switched to English when met by a bewildered expression. The few Afrikaans words I have beentaught by the cast were not suitable for this social occasion.An easy drive back to Grahamstown as it was all mainly along the one road. I slept for a few hours. As weneared home, a jolly mood abounded. The Ubomies have a holiday break for 10 days starting tomorrow.Arriving back at Rhodes, we unloaded the cumbersome sets into the theatre dock and returned the props to‘the space’ – the storage area specifically for Ubom’s props and paraphernalia.I arrived home to an exciting pile of dvds I found by my bed. Janet has been through the Ubom archives andbrought home more than half a dozen dvds of the company’s past poetry shows for me to watch and toinspire me for my own poetry show idea. Some holiday viewing! Once I’ve finished this lot I’ll move on tothe other past shows. On tour, I watched a video of a stage mask performance and it inspired me to write myfirst ever mask show. It will probably never face the world, but it was a joyous state of inspiration to be infor a few days. So after this next indulgence in viewing, I will hopefully head home with drama-ticallyincreased creative output. Whether it is worthy creative output remains to be seen.UBOM! HolidayI spent most of the Easter break with the Bucklands, relaxing in East London.Wednesday 27th April was Freedom Day – to celebrate voting rights of blacks in the national election of1994 - the first post-apartheid election. Andrew told me the moving story of the massive lines at votingbooths around the country where blacks and whites mingled in the excitement and emotion of themomentous day. Of course, the day also commemorates the election of Nelson Mandela, the first South


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African president to be voted in by a fully representative democratic election.On the Thursday 28th, I watched the other R&J rehearsals to which I have contributed. This group consists of6 local township performers, who would not otherwise be supported for this work, and is essentially atraining ground for the Ubom main company. Madalay the director, is a tall, gorgeous Amazonian-likewoman with a dazzling smile, passion and obvious talent. The showing was very engaging and quitedifferent from our version, which was great. Madalay has modernized much of the language intocontemporary English as well as having a lot more dialogue in Xhosa. The two households were two politicalsides, both alike in dignity - the ANC vs the democrats, I think? The physical work was very good, but I couldsense the same issue Dion and I were aware of with our production, especially at the beginning ofrehearsals – that the actors have an embodied energy when speaking in their own first language, thatdissipates in Shakespeare’s language. I think this is not an issue specific to non-English as first languagespeakers. It’s just about making the language your own, which we all need to do, since no one (as far as Iknow) still speaks in Shakespearean English. When lines are insecure this issue is especially overt becausethe performer is just trying to remember the words and not connecting to them at all. It is similar to metrying to work in accent and concentrating on the sounds rather than my intentions, though I’m sure awhole new language is considerably more challenging.I spent quite a few hours of the holiday watching the Ubom! past poetry shows on dvd. Their choral work,harmonising of voices as well as physical shapes and engagement (even when not speaking) are allexceptional. I am very inspired and have started a list of the poems I would love to explore in this form. Itreminded me of many of the poems I loved as a school student and got my mind buzzing about how topresent them on stage. Amongst the poetry was a sneaky Shakespeare show (yes, poetry also) that Iwatched very eagerly. The set up was a quick, comically heightened overview of the various plays andcharacters that they then went on to explore. The character/narrative focus, with each character demandingthat their story be heard, made me think of Pirandello's 'Six Character's in Search of an Author'. Very clever.I keep plotting Shakespeare education shows in my head regularly these days... surely one of them willeventually manifest.As the Rhodes students had returned to classes after Easter, I went with Janet to watch her 3rd yearstudent’s showings of their directorial pieces. 5 minutes on a play of their own choosing. I had read a few oftheir play analyses on the break and Janet had explained their full task to me, from floor plan to rehearsingtheir actors. It was great to observe these young directors and actors at work and to reflect on the differencebetween those and professionals. It’s comforting to be reminded that age and experience has helped me!After observing each showing Janet allowed me to ‘give notes’ (critical feedback) first and I found I had a lotto say – would I have had so much in the beginning of this journey? Not only that did I have the ability togive critical feedback and encouragement, and advice and recommendations on exercise to try with theactors, but I LOVED the process. I was reassured by Janet’s agreeing with me on most points, that I was onthe right track.Week 7: Monday 2nd May – Friday 6th May 2011I began intensive Shakespeare language work with the cast by getting Dion to read Hamlet’sadvice to the players, widely acknowledged as what Shakespeare’s own perspective on actingmight be: “Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you- trippingly on the tongue” etc.We then spent the week working through John Barton’s famous RSC tapes, breaking downelements of performing Shakespeare, including: looking at Iambic Pentameter, the rhythm of theverse; scansion and rhythmic variations and what they mean.; consonants, articulation, and livingin the vowels; Verse vs Prose in the plays; pronunciation and resonance; antithesis andheightened speech; set speeches and soliloquy, archaic pronunciation and character throughlanguage.I was amazed at how readily and enthusiastically the actors were responding to this rigorous -Ihate to say it, almost academic, work. But of course, we were up on the floor playing in action, notsitting around reading books. And that makes all the difference. Why should I be amazed atactors relishing the investigation of their craft? It’s what I love to do. Perhaps I thought that thelanguage would be a barrier… now THAT is not giving them enough credit, underestimating theperformer’s curiosity and thirst for knowledge. When it comes to story-telling, we get seriousand studious, in whatever culture or language.I gave each actor a Shakespeare sonnet that I had chosen specifically for them, to challenge them.We spent time on these almost every morning as a warm-up and as a way to explore all theelements as we encountered them. The sonnets are a great way to start this kind of intenselanguage study as there is no distraction of character. In fact, the performer has to be the subject


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of the poem, thereby ‘owning the language’ – a phrase often heard at drama school. There was alittle bit of hesitancy at first, but once we went through each sonnet as a group, reading aloud andsharing and discussing what it meant, they started to get into it. By the end of the week, I believethe actors had become quite attached to their sonnets (owning them!) , AND I think they havefallen in love with the language and developed a strong appreciation of Shakespeare’s genius.Furthermore, the actors seem AWARE of when they are “getting it” and when they are pushing it.Major leaps as we applied all this work to Romeo and Juliet, working through scene by scene,questioning and detailing every moment. And while some actors were on the floor, working,others were in the corner of the room, or outside in the hallway, walking through the rhythms oftheir dialogue, marking in the iambic pentameter and it’s variations. Such an exciting week.I loved watching moments in the play coming alive when the sounds of the words came from themotivation and the motivations came through in the language. Dion’s massive session drawnfrom Kristen Linklater’s work was inspiring. Starting with a Pablo Neruda poem on words, we layon the floor and began breathing in words, bypassing the brain and allowing ourselves to have asensorial experience of the word and expressing it out again through the word.– I took part too, and from what I gained myself, I’m certain this helped the actors enormously inconnecting to what they were saying, when they applied it to their Shakespeare dialogue. I addedin to the mix the stepping stone exercise that I had learnt from Rowena Balos, which is quitesimilar to the “dropping-in” work I did at Shakespeare & Co in Lenox. The cast learnt four lines oftheir sonnet, and practiced them outside in the sun, then came in to share them. Then I askedthem to work through word by word, finding the way to access and personalize each image., andspeaking these personalisations out loud. I emphasised the importance of not painting with awash of feeling. The temptation to do so, once we understand the intellectual meaning andgeneral gist of what we are saying, can be pervasive. After this process they shared their fourlines again. We could all tell when one had made a true connection with a word, embodied it – itwas enriched in the voice., and when they had not. The embodied words, the sounds wererelished, enjoyed, played with (but not in a superficial way). They made sense. Both exercises arelong and require focus and commitment, alongside a “letting go” into the journey, but areextremely rewarding. Afterwards we all had a great discussion about how English as 2nd (3rd, 4thfor Themba?) language effects this process.In Mime class this week we continued on our “Journey to Bisho” (A town a few hours fromGrahamstown, a place of de-centralized government. The journey on foot would seem likeforever – resonances of Kafka’s ‘The Trial” and the story of the man who comes from the countryand asks for permission to enter at the gates of the law). Journey to Bisho:We see a sign to Bisho. The sequence continues with walking, finding a wall, trying to go around,over, under, stepping back on to a ladder, climbing up the wall with it, balancing on the edge,walking on the tightrope ledge, finding a rope and pulling it to find a balloon, being slowly liftedinto the air by the balloon. Floating above the earth, seeing a big bird flying towards us (being thebird, as well as the person floating by the balloon), the balloon is popped by the bird, flapping andfalling, then recovering and flying, soaring, landing, seeing water and diving in, swimming, beingchased by a shark, seeing the land and walking to the sign, only to see on the sign that Bisho isactually further away, and in a different direction. We repeated the exercise in four differentdirections.Also throughout the week, I took the actors through some Laban technique, making upmovement sequences for their character’s relationships, and we did some visual/object theatrework to reconnect with our set and props. We did a ‘silly run” of the show, which had somemoments of utter nonsense and some fabulous moment of brilliance and a fair dose of hilarity. Itwas a great way to loosen up sections of the play that were becoming a little stagnant andpredictable. We played drama games, a kind of ‘professional development’ for us all in which weshared our favourite exercises. I learnt a couple of great new games to take home with me – Aversion of musical chairs, which is more about team-work and focus, and another focus one fromNox called ‘Bing Bong’. Lots of fun and laughter during all of these, but also some negotiating aswe had often learnt the same game but with differing rules. It was valuable to experience thesesubtle modes of education in the way we hope our students do when we facilitate workshops:having a whole lot of fun!


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Friday night we all went to watch Innovations, the Undergrad skit show at Rhodes. An hour ofmusic and enthusiastic creativity. The most interesting work was from two young students whosatirized their own stereotype as black men, and were clever and entertaining, weaving thewhole show together as MCs.Over the weekend, I had a wonderful discussion with Janet about Makana and Maquoma, andDavid Stuurman – historical political figures of the local area. David Stuurman was the first blackAfrican man to be sent to Australia after he escaped from Robben Island Prison.Andrew later told me about a colleague who has written a ‘verbatim’ play about a copy ofShakespeare’s complete works that was smuggled in and out of Robben Island whilst NelsonMendela and other notable figures of the movement were imprisoned there. True story.Apparently they each marked or underlined a section in the book that was significant to them.The play is a reflection of these people and interspersed with the Shakespearean text. Must trackit down and see if there is a published copy available….Week 8-9: Monday 9th May – Tuesday 17th May 2011On Monday we had a run through for Andrew to give notes. I demonstrated some of the sonnetexercises we had been practicing, followed by a run (which ran at 1 hour hurrruh!). Some ofAndrew’s VERY USEFUL NOTES (for directing actors now and for any future Shakespeareproduction) included:*Allow the text and dealing with the text to do the work for you. Enjoy the journey of the sonnets– they change you from the beginning to the end.*Apply the Mime principle- don’t do four vague gestures, instead do ONE clear strong one. It’s farmore impacting. Do less, but make a stronger statement of each thought. Applies to gesture andlanguage.*Be careful not to foretell the end of the scene or the play (or the sonnet).*Use the weight of the vowels for emphasis, not speed or volume*Really ask the questions and think the thoughts and let the language work for you.*Find the new thoughts, gear shifts.*Listen more, do less - Economy in responses*Economy of movement – more specificity in directing the energy,*Mark your characters journey, using vowels and the most important words to punctuate andemphasise moments.So we continued to work on the text throughout the week, applying these notes, refining andworking with a new set item from Barati - a permanent bedroom area for Juliet created by a wallthat rolls around to hide the interior, or opens out to show her bed. Window and curtains also toadd moments of business and play.One very handy warm-up I created this week was throwing a ball amongst the group, each actorthrowing the ball on the release of a vowel sound across the room at someone. Phase twoinvolved adding an intention – to express love, anger, confusion, jealousy, guilt etc on the vowel.On Thursday, I got to take Janet’s 3rd years for an hour of their class. I did a visual theatreworkshop with them as it tied in with their floor-plan study they are currently undertaking. Mysession with the directing students:1. Stop-go2. The Balancing Circle3. Clap and Fall trust game4. Numbers and shapes5. Knife and Fork6. Visual theatre – object theatre7. Free form with music, exploration of objects in space – paper, fabric, water bottle etc. in 3phases – 1. Your sensorial exploration of the object. 2. How you can use that object, moving in


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relation to the body. 3. An emotional relationship with the object.I wanted to go on to a Boal exercise I’d found in a book Janet recommended to me, (creating thespace with objects, and one student directing half the group etc,) but unfortunately I ran out oftime and had to give the class back to Janet. Once again - I LOVED this experience. Dramastudents are good fun – eager, and they jump right in, for the most part.The Ubomies taught me a song this week. A cheeky one about the white man coming fromoverseas and everyone praising him! Umlungu is Xhosa for ‘white man’. I was also taught aboutTokoloshe, the Xhosa version of Queen Mab. We asked Nox all about this wicked spirit thatinvades your dreams and makes you do things, and as she relayed the myth, it was like a re-enacting of Mercutio’s Queen Mab soliloquy. Brilliant!One of the biggest improvements in these two weeks has been that the actors really started tolisten to each other. Now that they are more comfortable with what they are saying themselves,they are relaxed enough to listen and respond organically. There is a lot less acting as if theywere reacting, and more natural reacting in the moment.The performance at the Eastern Cape Schools Festival was a MASSIVE success. Watching from thesound and lighting booth at the back, I had been fretting about the pace, but it became obviousthat the students were listening intently to everything. The actors were working with incredibleclarity, so the audience was able to follow the story in detail. Andrew also said to me later of thejoy of this show: The students are hearing familiar lines in familiar accents so in some waysthey’re hearing much more than we are. I love this idea – that a familiar accent is full of so manysocial and cultural references that it enriches the dialogue – even Shakespeare!The students had vocal responses to a number of moments, such as Mercutio dying, Juliet takingthe potion and Romeo’s farewell to Juliet. Of course, heaps of giggling as well. At the end, morethan half the audience jumped to their feet in a standing ovation.

Running workshops at the Eastern Cape Schools Festival


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8. CONCLUSIONS:I had the opportunity and adventure of a lifetime, thanks to the Winston ChurchillFellowship. The experiences I’ve had and lessons I have learnt, I will carry with methroughout my career and life. I feel I have grown holistically during my time in SouthAfrica, through working with Janet Buckland, Andrew Buckland, Ubom!, and theNational Schools Festivals, as well as through my interactions with the broader SouthAfrican community and arts practitioners in the country.I am immensely grateful to the Churchill foundation and hope that I will have manyopportunities to express this and encourage others to pursue a Churchill dream.What I have learnt:*Knowledge, awareness, respect, open-mindedness , enthusiasm, and whole-heartedcommitment, are key ingredients in developing a community performance.* Exciting and dynamic physical and vocal approaches, and current, relevant thematicchoices are essential for a culturally inclusive Shakespeare production.* Use of familiar accent and even occasional translation of Shakespeare into the commonlanguage of the community is welcomed and appreciated and contributes greatly toaudience engagement.* Community Shakespeare performers need to be skilled not only physically and vocallybut also need to be in tune with contemporary interests and issues to be able to includereferences and ideas which make the work accessible and relevant to communityaudiences.* Through participating in physical theatre and mime workshops with Ubom! I haveexplored new areas of skill development, and more specifically, ways to apply theseskills to my work as a Shakespeare performer, director and teacher.* Facilitating workshops at three schools Arts festivals across South Africa allowed meto extend my research into engaging youth in cross-cultural, non-language based theatregames and exercises in general.* Engaging regional youth audiences from non-English backgrounds with Shakespeareand theatre in general is best achieved through storytelling devices, (myth, historical,personal). In particular visual modes are most successful, along with other non-languagebased exercises.How will I share what I have learnt?I aim to implement my new knowledge and skills through all facets of my career. As aperformer, I learnt by observation of the incredibly skilled, committed and creativeactors of the Ubom! company and other performance artists I was privileged to watch inaction throughout my Fellowship stay. I look forward to opportunities to utilize thisinspiration in my own work on stages around the country, hopefully including manyremote and regional areas . I hope to inspire others in the way that I have been inspiredduring my fellowship.


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As a director and workshop facilitator I was guided by Janet Buckland, AndrewBuckland, and Dion Van Niekerk. I was taught new approaches and exercises, and learntby observation, modes of interacting with performance artists to get the best possibleoutcomes. I believe I have grown immeasurably in confidence and ability. I will applythis growth in my current employment as regional Arts Educator with the BellShakespeare Company, and as a freelance Shakespeare workshop leader for theQueensland Theatre Company and Shake & Stir theatre company. I aim to gain furtherresponsibility in working with the Queensland University of Technology, hoping to oneday be teacher of the 2nd Year Acting students’ Shakespeare Intensive and director oftheir major Shakespeare Performance.In my interactions with them, I will encourage the companies mentioned to expand theiraudiences where possible, to be more inclusive of communities that are remote, non-English as first language- speaking and socio-economically disadvantaged; I willdisseminate and support performative modes that are conducive to this spread ofknowledge and entertainment. I have also arranged several meetings with like-mindedcolleagues: Damien Ryan and Matt Edgerton who promote classical theatre throughtheir company “Sport For Jove”; Tama Matheson of 4MBS Classic Radio; Shane Jones,independent director; and Fraser Corfield of The Australian Theatre For Young People. Iwill discuss my experiences and conclusions with them and brainstorm ideas tocollaborate and disseminate this knowledge.

Children riding alongside the Ubom! tour bus in the North West province


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9. RECOMMENDATIONS:*I believe that the study of Shakespeare throughout secondary education should be acore essential subject on the national curriculum, supported by opportunities forstudents to study the plays and poetry ‘off the page’ by reading aloud and performingthemselves, also by being given the opportunity to see professionals performing live. Anumber of companies, such as Bell Shakespeare and Shake & Stir are currently reachinglarge areas of the country, but there is still room for growth.*The study of Shakespeare (at School or Tertiary level, in English and Drama) shouldalways be concurrent with a questioning of its contemporary relevance, finding parallelstories in our current world news and modern history. Sharing common stories ofhumanity is, I believe, crucial to youth social and educational development. Story-tellingis an inherently human trait and Shakespeare’s stories can be a thrilling, challenging andinvigorating springboard for telling our own. The plays share universal ideas, feelingsand dilemmas. The theatrical nature of the play also incites exploration intocontemporary ways to share our own thoughts and complex experiences. The thrill ofdiscovery, investigation and textual detective work as well as the exploration of how werelate are all invaluable education tools.*Australian artists must continually find new, exciting ways to prove to the Governmentand the general public, the value of the arts, and in particular, regional programming ofperformances, workshops and creative developments. We must inspire understandingand appreciation that the arts have deep roots in humanity and therefore have greatpotential for social change in a positive way. Cultural history and knowledge,appreciation of diversity, accessibility in our work, respect, sensitivity, and also a senseof humour, are all crucial to developing and sharing the arts community in this country,and these traits must be embraced full-heartedly and nourished.

Knowledge is like a lion; it cannot be gently embraced.- South African Proverb

THE WINSTON CHURCHILL MEMORIAL TRUST OF AUSTRALIA · month stay in South Africa, working with the...

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