The immense optimism
that young people have in our hard-won democracy must never be taken for
granted. (Review by Dr Ismail Mahomed)
This was the message that lit the stage at the Courtyard Theatre at the Durban University of Technology when more than 40 third-year students in Drama and Production Studies Department took to the stage last night for their final performance of The Scent Of Change.
Scripted and directed by Verne Munsamy with musical direction by Zenneth Chibane and choreography by Mdu Mtshali The Scent Of Change is a necessary reminder about why our fragile democracy needs to be nursed with compassion, empathy and understanding.
More than anything else, the production is a joyous celebration about why our country's Born Free Generation need to know about our country's past but not have to be burdened with having to carry its baggage. This was affirmed so very strongly by its young audience who could not but resist in joining the cast in a song and dance at the production's curtain call.
The Scent Of Change is set in the late 1980's and the early 1990's when apartheid was losing its grip and the schooling system was cautiously walking towards desegregation. Tensions in privileged schools was rather high. Verne Munsamy sets his musical in the heart of a public school in Chatsworth. What follows is a collage of how racism, bigotry, hatred and distrust fuelled by Durban's January 1949 riots had been carried inter-generationally and was further fuelled by the National government's apartheid policies.
Munsamy's all-African cast play a collage of colourful Indian characters that are so very recognisable. His characters don traditional Indian costumes that make each of these characters look so much like the next-door aunty or uncle. And when they open their mouths, it is not only what they have to say that leaves you wanting to run away from recognition but it is the hilarious Indian accents mastered by his all-African casts that hits you with thunderbolts of hilarity.
The Scent Of Change doesn't stay stuck in that bitter past. It is a story about empathy, love, romance, pain and resilience. It has a bottomline Chatsworth and Umlazi-styled Romeo and Juliet twist to it. The musical is not a Shakespeare reincarnated. Neither is it a Sheikh Peer having flashbacks. And most certainly it’s not a story about reigniting the hatred that Jacob Zuma had tried to reinsurrect during the political violence in KZN.
This was a story about Born Frees who are anchored to their roots where their mothers, fathers and grandparents carry generational trauma and pain. It is a story about Born Frees whose hearts and minds can critically reflect on our past but not dwell in it. And if one had to look at the production with an eye only for artistic aesthetics then sadly the boundless joy on that stage would escape one.
The immense optimism that young people have in our hard-won democracy must never be taken for granted. We just need to persuade them to go to the polls because our fragile democracy can easily slip back into our horrid past if they don't do so. – Ismail Mahomed
Posts
