Africa is coming to Neptune’s Studio Theatre this month, with the South African-Canadian collaboration Ubuntu: The Cape Town Project. The play tells the story of a young man who leaves the black townships in search of the father who abandoned him for Canada 20 years ago.
“It’s about the secrets he unearths. Ubuntu is about community and how we connect to our ancestors,” explains Daryl Cloran. The Drum! director says the fusion of theatrical methods makes for dynamic story telling.
“The style of theatre in South Africa is really physical; we thought we could learn a lot from the performers,” he says. “English-Canadian theatre tradition is very literate, very text-based. It’s kitchen-sink drama, where as the style of theatre in the black townships is with the body first.”
Cloran travelled to Cape Town in 2004 to recruit actors for the show. When the production finally came to Toronto earlier this year, it was the first time many of the actors had travelled abroad.
“As exciting as it is to go to someone else’s country, it’s also great to see your country through a visitor’s eyes,” Cloran said. “Their first impression was how ridiculously safe it was here.”
In South Africa, Cloran, like everyone else, stayed in a house protected by barbed-wire. Andile Nebulane, who stars as Jabba, was late for the first rehearsals after getting stabbed outside the theatre.
The chaotic, perilous existence in South Africa contrasts with the serene security in Canada in some of the play’s more dramatic scenes as Jabba makes his way from Africa to Canada.
Ubuntu illustrates this by mixing music with dance and winding North American narrative through South African myth.
