(Pic: Ellis Pearson and S’Dumo Mtshali)Ellis Pearson and S’Dumo Mtshali present charming dramatic piece for environmental management.
Theatre stalwart Ellis Pearson and partner S’Dumo Mtshali recently presented a charming dramatic piece titled Little Tree at the Wildlands Conservation Trust annual fundraiser Art for Conservation. This was an appropriate choice for this prestigious event as a large part of the proceeds go towards Wildlands’ Indigenous Trees for Life project. The show was funded by the eThekwini Municipality’s Environmental Management Department and specially created for the Wildlands Conservation Trust, a KZN-based non-profit organisation.
Ellis Pearson plays an old man who has scaled a tree to protest against the bulldozing of the final tree in a village to make way for a housing development - and has refused to budge for three days. The focus is on the destruction of forests and the desperate need to plant more trees to stave off global warming. S’Dumo Mtshali’s many characters include a worried grandson, a ‘cool’ and streetwise dude and the induna who finds himself on shaky ground when he tries to defend destroying trees in the name of development.
Warnings about global warming and pleas to plant trees are not new. In fact, thanks to all the media hype, both this and many other audiences might say they’ve “heard it all before”. To make people sit up and listen, Ellis Pearson believes in going for the unexpected: “By trying to make something unusual, we’ll be creeping up behind them rather than (launching) a full frontal attack. Theatre can do that,” he says. “Theatre is wonderful. It has a (special) kind of language. Our goal is to make it fun - but, at the end of the day, it all about trying to make people feel something so that they do something differently.”
In this production, and many of the others to which Pearson has contributed, key elements include universal appeal across all age groups, a sense of surprise, danger and energy. “Normally, with something like Oscar Wilde, there is an established script,” he continues. “We are creators. We write the stuff ourselves and create the characters. In essence, it’s handmade theatre for specific occasions. It is about finding a whole new story, one that keeps growing from performance to performance.
Pearson is certainly no stranger to strong messages and this is not the first time he has wagged his finger when it comes to the environment. One of his most acclaimed productions, Black Out, rang the alarm about global warming while his most recent one, Impisi, used an unlikely relationship between a lion and a hyena to deliver a powerful life lesson in a Jungle Book sort of way, ie - make the most of what you have rather than hankering after what you do not.
Impisi marked the first partnership between Mtshali and Pearson. The two met at the Durban University of Technology when Mtshali was a student while Pearson was on campus, working on a project. Pearson said he was so impressed by Mtshali’s acting that, when he developed the Impisi project, he was the automatic choice.
The full 45 minute show of Little Tree is destined for schools and communities that have been chosen by Wildlands and its sponsor, the eThekwini Municipality’s Environmental Management Department.
“After that, we hope it has got an even longer life with a variety of environmental organisations both in South Africa and abroad,” says Pearson. His own view of the environment is fairly straight forward – “despite sending up space probes and satellites, we still only know of one blue planet which is why we cannot wash it down the drain. The best way to capture nature is to watch a bird, look at a tree, catch the sounds of things, gaze at the sky. It is not just about the big five. If we really love something, then we won’t harm it.”
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