Reviews 2001
Reviews 2001
✭✭✭✭✩
created and directed by Zenzi Mbuli
SFX Back Row Presentations, Pantages Theatre, Toronto
March 6-18, 2001
“Wonders in Wellies”
To the uninformed, "Gumboots" may appear as a bizarre cross between "Stomp" and "Riverdance". Like "Stomp" the show has a gritty industrial setting and is structured by a wide range of rhythms. Like "Stomp" the performers were initially mostly buskers whose talents were recognized by a producer, in this case Tale Motsepe, and whose repertory has been honed and organized into a theatrical entertainment. Like "Riverdance" this entertainment showcases a particular culture and one of its dance forms, especially as related to the footwear used-here, the wellingtons or gumboots of the title. But where "Riverdance" provides only vague bits of Celtic tosh for its thin narrative throughline, "Gumboots" is firmed rooted in a social and historical reality. Unlike "Riverdance", which is so slick that it sometimes seems performed by well-programmed automatons, the smaller-scale "Gumboots" exudes a feeling of greater authenticity and a mood of far greater warmth.
The show, created by director Zenzi Mbuli and the Rishile Gumboot Dancers of Soweto, highlights South African songs and the unusual dance form that developed among black miners in that country. Rather than pumping out the standing water in the gold mines miles below the surface, the mine owners found it cheaper simply to issue the miners with gumboots. Working in the darkness, the miners, sent to the Johannesburg area from their native villages, developed a way of communicating with each other by a system of slaps on their boots. In their "free" time, they entertained each other with dances in these boots where this slapping and the jingling of the chain rings added to the rhythm. To these rhythms are added the beautiful harmonies of South African song.
The general structure Mbuli has given the show is a progress from the simple to the complex. It starts with nothing visible on stage but two wellies in a pool of light. Then six men enter in the back of the auditorium and begin an a cappella song. By the end of the show the rhythm of gumboot stomping and slapping is augmented by two drummers and a keyboardist--first unseen, then visible--and by four more singer/dancers. The music is organized so as to show a typical day in the lives of mine workers in Johannesburg. It begins with a comic scene of the principal performer, Vincent Ncabashe, teaching the other miners to sing. They then move into songs about work and the "City of Gold" they are slaving for to a long central section about life after a day's work--thoughts of the women left behind, love songs, an hilarious courting song "I'm Too Sexy", party songs and drinking songs. Just when the tone seems to have lightened perhaps too much, there's a brilliantly evocative onomatopoetic song about the trains that bring the miners to Johannesburg, which in many ways encapsulates the whole show, moving, as it does, from a series of isolated rhythmic sounds to the integration of song and dance in the physical imitation of a train. This is succeeded by the most moving and equivocal scene of the show. Ncabashe tells us that "for every drop of water a man has lived and died in the mines". A water-filled square is opened in the floor and Ncabashe sings while dancing in it as water splashes with every step high in the air all over the stage. It amazingly transforms the joyful image from "Singin' in the Rain" into one of pain and tragedy.
The 90-minute show covers not just a typical day, but the history of the mines themselves. The show includes the irony of a song lamenting the closing of the deadly mines because they have now become the displaced miners only source of income for their families. The conclusion isa prayer: "Keep me strong, give me long life, let me see the sunshine". We finally come to realize the truth of what Ncabashe had said near the beginning of the show, "The man who takes the gold took away the sun". The miners have been exiled not just from their villages but, in working two to three miles underground, from the light. "Rishile" in the group's name means "sunrise".
The set by Australian Nigel Triffitt looks like nothing more than a paltry set of metal steps and a platform when the show begins. But as the show progresses elements are ingeniously added to it bit by bit until at the climactic water song it resembles a working mine rig with whirring wheels, cables and dripping water. The talents of British lighting designer, Gavin Norris, are put to the test since, until very near the end, the action is meant to take place in darkness, whether in the mine shafts themselves or in camps at night after work. Given these strictures, he cleverly manages to suggest varieties of surrounding darkness while still keeping the dancing clearly visible. Only the rock concert style lighting for two of the party songs struck me as out of keeping with the nature of the show.
It seems appropriate that the show should have its North American premiere at the Juste pour Rire Festival in Montreal last year. "Gumboots" is the kind of music theatre that gives you a natural lift. The tradition of gumboot dancing has transformed a symbol of mistreatment into a mode of self-expression. The performers' discipline shown in the precision of their unisons, harmonies and rhythms becomes a sign of the strength of community. By bringing this show to us, Future Artists Empowerment led by Tale Motsepe and the producer SFX Back Row (in charge of non-traditional forms of theatre) let us see for ourselves that human imagination can create art even in the most adverse circumstances.
After the beautiful but inane Disneyfied Africa of "The Lion King", I found "Gumboots" to be a breath of fresh air--something real after something so fake. Young adults and children should enjoy this show, too, since it is so full of rhythm and vitality. And, unlike that corporate blockbuster, the music is a thousand times richer and has so much more heart.
©Christopher Hoile
Photo: A scene from Gumboots. ©2001.
2001-03-09
Gumboots