(The
cast of the production)
The 1997 South African theatre classic,
originally created by Junction Avenue and originally directed by Malcolm Purkey,
Love, Crime and Johannesburg, is
getting a 20 year face-lift and being re-staged for a 2017 KZN audience.
As UKZN’s Drama and Performance Studies
showcase 2017 productions, Love, Crime
and Johannesburg features the senior students of the programme in a finely-crafted
theatre adventure directed by Drama lecturer and young theatre maker, Kamini
Govender. Known for her own stand-up comedy and her finely-tuned and socially
edgy performances, Govender was drawn to Love,
Crime and Johannesburg because, as she says, “it still speaks to us today!
I love the witty and humorous way in which the play tackles really serious issues
and how it reminds us to laugh at the painful irony of the political state of
our nation”.
Govender has worked with a cast of 24 young
actors and dancers in a revised/re-visited version of the play that includes
song, dance and slam poetry interwoven into the original story. A simple set
reflects the wealth and poverty that coexists in the multifaceted city of
Johannesburg - a city that is a microcosm and a poetic symbol for all our
disappointments, delusions and dreams.
Govender’s approach to directing the play
has been influenced by Sigh the Beloved
Country’s author, Bongani Madondo, who writes, “South Africa is exhausting.
What we never say enough, though, is that South Africa is also enchanting,
complex, beautiful, confident, unsure, insecure, and spirit-roiling. It is both
a magical and crippling country”. Govender adds, “I hope my version of Love, Crime and Johannesburg will
reflect this”.
The play, famously takes on Bertolt
Brecht’s ironic conundrum that states, “Why bother to rob a bank, when you can
own a bank?” Central to Love, Crime and
Johannesburg is the character of Jimmy ‘Long Legs’ Mangane, a people’s poet
involved in the struggle and who is now accused of robbing a bank. He
passionately asserts his innocence, claiming to work for the "secret
secret service." Lewis, his old friend and comrade from the struggle, now
owns a bank. How did this happen? The man of the struggle is now a man of
accounts. Added to the mix is an old-style gangster, two girlfriends, a Jewish
mother and a very unusual Chief of Police.
For Govender, the play's protagonist Jimmy
‘Longlegs’ Mangane represents not just a broken individual but a corrupted
political ideology. She says: “at a time of political upheaval and social
scepticism, contemporary South Africa dances on the edge of its own revolution
or dissolution – with blatant corruption, increasing violence and frustration
dominating our news – we have curled ourselves into a society of exhausted
question marks. Set in Johannesburg, this play explores the crossing between
the citizens and the state; contrasting the corporate crime, the unspeakable
cruelties toward the vulnerable and the – sometimes - quiet kindnesses shown
toward each other in the city”.
The play originally won the 2000 Vita Award
for best script of a new South African play.
Love,
Crime and Johannesburg runs at the Elizabeth
Sneddon Theatre from September 27 to 30 at 19h00 with a matinee on September 30
and October 1 at 15h00. Tickets R50 (R20 scholars and students) can be bought
on the night via the Box Office from one hour before the show begins.
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