(Bheki Khabela)
Actor, mentor, teacher Bheki Khabela (1970-2016) passed away
on April 9.
Bheki Khabela was born at uMzinto on the KwaZulu-Natal South
Coast. He was a soccer star at high school, but got interested in theatre soon
after finishing matric, and never lost this passion. He attended drama workshops
with Gibson Kente’s company in the early 1990s, and then started taking classes
at the Upstairs Theatre in downtown Durban.
He later met up with Sduduzo Kawula and Bhekani Shabalala
who were then part of the Enhlanhleni drama group. The three actors were known
as the three mosquitoes: “when you see one, you know the other two are always
around!”
Khabela, Kawula and Shabalala then moved on to master their
craft under the newly-established drama programme at the BAT Centre, under the
guidance of Bheki Mkhwane. Together with Mkhwane they created the show Sitting Around the Fire, which
premiered in 1995 and was later revived in 2010 and won a Standard Bank Ovation
Award at the National Arts Festival.
The group of three actors started to produce their own work,
and acting in other theatre productions and Khabela also started to work as a
teacher and mentor on a number of drama projects. He worked with Miranda Young-Jahangeer
and Chris Hurst from the University of KwaZulu-Natal to facilitate a
ground-breaking drama programme in the Westville prison, he tutored students at
both UKZN and the Durban University of Technology, mentored a number of school
drama programmes through a project supported by the Ethekwini Municipality, and
trained young theatre-makers around the province through the St Lucia Wetlands
Park cultural programme.
In 2003, Khabela, Kawula and Shabalala joined Michael
Gritten and Emma Durden to create the PST Project, focusing on industrial
theatre. Khabela also performed in many different theatre shows and musicals around
KZN and further afield, with a host of different directors. He was a regular on
stages at the Playhouse, at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown and the
International Community Arts Festival in Rotterdam. He performed around South
Africa, The Netherlands, Germany, France and the DRC, most recently in an
international collaboration with dancer Boysie Cekwana.
“Bheki was a wonderful character actor, and his short
stature allowed him to play great comic roles, but he also had the ability to
capture the deep emotions of those in pain, and his work as “Magogo” in the
production of The Horseshoe in South
Africa and in the Netherlands was praised by reviewers as “shining”,” says Emma
Durden, a director of Twist Theatre Projects.
Khabela also worked in film and television, appearing in a
number of small independent films, and on SABC1’s series The Bay of Plenty. He turned
down offers of further television work in Johannesburg, preferring life in the
theatre and at home in KZN.
“Bheki was a wonderfully humble person; he was a thoughtful
actor and a sensitive spirit. He had a great sense of fun, and also a strong
ethical core, and was a fierce protector of the rights of others. He will be
sorely missed by his friends, family, fellow actors, and those of us in the
industry who knew and loved him,” adds Durden.
A memorial service will be held at the BAT Centre, on April 15
at 15h00. All are welcome.
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