The tale of interminable and indispensable human idiocy staged at the Market Theatre

You Fool How Can The Sky Fly, Pic Credit: Supplied

Soft music is playing in the background, the platform on which this play is being delivered is a thrust theatre stage known by its arrangement which consists of being surrounded by audience on the three sides, antiquated brown sofa is displayed lazily, with cushions grazing unassertive on it and a pair of black shoes graced the floor. The open stage allows for chairs to be planted erratically here and there. At the brims of the stage, there are books, installation of old books made with the untold juxtaposition of what the play will unfold. Slight above the stage, set and costume designers; Karabo Mtshali, Nthabiseng Mokone and Nthabiseng Malaka must have had fun in designing the set because there is a visual sound of chaos in the arrangement of chairs and how the screen made of a bed sheet cover is hanging onto the fence, as if the parliamentarians were on some beef or the committee on certain portfolio just finished roasting the minister of the department involved. Most objects on the stage are old, conversely suggestive of corruption as a thing in politics.

This production starred by seven talented theatre practitioners, can be pronounced as a timeless political sarcasm which is pertinent within the contemporary politics of South Africa and will still be germane when staged anywhere in the world. Scribed by one of the country’s foremost playwrights, novelist, painter and academic Professor Zakes Mda in the early 1990s and directed by James Ngcobo at The Market Theatre’s Mannie Manim. The play passage’s one into the close parliamentary chambers or behind closed doors of cabinet caucus meetings where politicians meet to talk about the mandates given them by people who voted them into power to deliver services them, which in most cases these very politicians or government officials fail to deliver.

The enactment of the play brings to our scrutiny the cabinet ministers walking onto the stage barefooted, the soundscape in the background is apiary and the outcrop on the screen is that of ants moving about. The prognosis on the screen is emblazoned ‘the fish rots from the head down’. The General, played by Pulane Sekepe walks to the stage carrying heavy stuff, what looked like containers brim-full of faeces and it is obvious the flies are following the smell for she also has her dust-mask on. She proceeded walking towards the pole and pull up a flag written “A Flag of That Country”. The General, as known by her colleagues, gives dirges about the arts and the importance, borrowing from famous art quotations. “There is art even in the most unassuming places,” she remarks.

Their conversations gain momentum as different ministers from arts and culture played by Nthati Moshesh, justice played by Linda Sokhulu, agriculture played by Moliehi Makobane, and health played Anele Situlweni converge for what seems like a cabinet’s brief session. They are positioned in such that they are being observed by an eye of a visual artist who was commissioned to do portraits of all the cabinet ministers. While busy talking, in walks the President played by Molefi Monaise. He is hilariously referred to as The Wise One by his members of cabinet. The wise one appears to be exhausted and he has on his left leg a filthy bandage. As he enters, he requests the ministers to introduce themselves in the order of portfolios they are assigned the responsibilities for.

There is a clear sense of jealousy and betrayal in their interchanges. The session is now about the wedding of the agriculture ministers’ daughter. The plan is that this wedding must be made a very significant event of a decade. The Wise One gave directives to the state minister of information and broadcasting to ensure all the television and radio, including the front pages of newspapers about the wedding. One cannot help but think of the wedding of foreign nationals from India who held the state ransom where ministers from different portfolios in Jacob Zuma’s administration partook at their capacities as government officials. The state comes to a standstill because the energies of the ministers of cabinet must be channelled to ensuring that the wedding of the daughter succeed over service deliveries to the people who voted them into power. The Gupta wedding had the taxpayers footing the bill not only for the venue in Sun City but also the waiters and other expenses. Their guests’ flight from India landed illegally in Waterkloof, an area of a national significance and no one was held accountable for this misuse of the national key point invasion.

You Fool How Can The Sky Fall, Pic Credit: Supplied

The President wants the ministers to ensure that the wedding gets a wide media coverage as possible, this is the reward for the minister of agriculture whom the President made us believe that he would do it for any minister in his own cabinet. He claims the minister has served the country and the ruling party with an absolute aptitude and reformism. Also, the minister of public works, absent in the meeting is been reliably informed to tar the roads leading both to the bride and groom’s apartments. It emerged that the minister of public works once embarrassed the wise one when he couldn’t tar the road leading to venue where the Pope was to address the nation during one of his state visits in the country where by the gravel road was instead painted black not tarred. Also it is alleged that the tender for building new house developments never saw light of the, as a substitute the makeshifts used for shooting films with pictures of houses where displayed to deceive the unaccountable president who never checked the work completed.

The most interesting part of the play, at least for me, is the cabinet’s understanding of arts and culture department, which appears to be dull, disgust and upright foolishness. It seems that the entire cabinet regards this department as a tokenism reserved for singing and dancing in some slapdash places and public squares, not for development and advancement of the artists and the sector. One wonders, just like the President himself, why the women sing his praises when they are naked.

The wise one surrounds himself with people who agree with him in everything he says. One could describe this phenomena as a fence of loyalism, cronyism and blatant lack of foresight that enables the state to drift into a directionless path. “You can utter words about something but you cannot have an idea because that is the work of the wise one,” one minister reminds us. If one love the African literature and fiction material written by other Africa authors describing the down of independence on the African continent, one is reminded of seminal work Ngugi Wa Thiongo called The Wizard Of A Craw. The story is set in the imaginary free Republic of Aburiria, dictatorially governed by one man known as The Ruler. In that novel, different cabinet ministers goes to the extent of doing unthinkable things such as medically enlarging their eyes so they can see anyone spying on The Ruler.

A show stopper moment comes when a young man walks in, walking like a tired being overburdened by the weighty troubles of the world. To the surprise of the comrades in the cabinet, the boy played by Zola Nombona who represents the ordinary people on the ground. Very interesting that the young man is a portrait artist who at some stage was commissioned to do portrays on the cabinet members. How art is ridiculed in this play has a great resonance and a testimony that nothing has changed in taking the arts and culture department seriously by most governments in Africa. This scene also introduces to us the recklessness of The Wise One decrees where he signs into law the regulation of beauty contests. The Young man reveals that the beauty contests cannot be regulated because already had the winner who won the beauty contests for her stretch marks as they were marching naked. Now they the cabinet is deciding another accolade of the wise one. After much brainstorming, he is anointed as the honourable Dr. President to the surprise of many. The Young man is against this move and exposes that the president is the very traitor of his administration.

YOU FOOL, HOW CAN THE SKY FALL is the tale of interminable, indispensable human idiocy and endlessly inventive and relevant. It is a play that tells the reality of corrupt politicians in the post-colonial era, not to insinuate that the colonial rule was holy.  Here Zakes Mda, as always, never disappoints in chronicling our continental narrative as he observes and understands them, blending satire and controversial in its depiction of South African nation at the crossroad in the aftereffects of the apartheid rule.  Ngcobo also challenged his casting, where a female minister and the young boy roles are portrayed by a men and male ministers portrait by sterling women. I thought if the Ngcobo wanted the women to portray the male characters, he should have done it with the president too. The most talented Zola Nombona didn’t not portray the young man as I would have expected. Nevertherless, these talented individuals brought to live the 23 year old script from the hands of Professor Zakes Mda.

The play is running through to the 28th October at The Market Theatre, Newtown, Johannesburg.