This article first appeared in the programme for the Autumn 2008 Johannesburg run of THE MAGIC FLUTE - IMPEMPE YOMLINGO.
In 2006 when we set up the Isango Portobello company in Cape Town I said:
"Over thirty years ago, as a Cape Town-born foreign correspondent, I helped give voices within disenfranchised black majority an opportunity to be heard abroad. Now, as a film and theatre producer, I would like to do the same for some of its extraordinary creative talent. From the films U-CARMEN EKHAYELITSHA to TSOTSI, from the plays THE MYSTERIES to Janet Suzman’s Baxter Theatre Production of HAMLET, South Africa has shown it has a rich seam of powerful stories and talented individuals who can turn these into film and theatre.
South African achievements in the international film and theatre arena make a great antidote to the common perception abroad of South Africa, and Africa in general, of being a country and a continent of bad news.
There is, in addition, a certain personal symmetry to the timing of this initiative in that we embarked on this venture thirty years to the month after I was banned and house arrested by the apartheid government, which led to fifteen years of exile in Britain.
Director Mark Dornford-May and Pauline Malefane have presented me with the perfect opportunity to reconnect with a country that is printed indelibly on my soul.”
This production of THE MAGIC FLUTE - IMPEMPE YOMLINGO had its genesis in Cape Town in early 2006 when Janet Suzman arranged for me to have dinner with the British, but South African-based, director Mark Dornford-May and his music director Charles Hazlewood at a seaside restaurant in Hout Bay in Cape Town.
I had seen Mark’s landmark production of THE MYSTERIES at the Queen’s Theatre in London in 2002 and his U-CARMEN film, which won the Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear Award in 2005.
The notion of a Cape Town-based company of black South African actors, a kind of embryonic black South African National Theatre, was discussed while the wine flowed. The little I knew about the cultural landscape in Cape Town was that it was stuck in the past and that theatre-going was primarily a marginal white preoccupation.
And so I agreed to underwrite the development of a new company – Isango Portobello – and produce its productions in South Africa and abroad. From the outset I was keen for the company to be deeply rooted in the local community and to have a South African base and performing venue. We researched leftfield ideas for a theatrical tour in South Africa and up Africa in a convoy of buses with a portable stage and theatre tents and cinema vans which could take the work of Isango Portobello to the townships.
Sadly, it appeared that domestic sponsors were thin on the ground and we decided to limit our horizons, initially at least, and to workshop a few productions so that we could perform two in repertory in Cape Town and London, in association with the Young Vic.
Over six months WEST SIDE STORY, THE BEGGAR’S OPERA, THE MAGIC FLUTE and Charles Dickens’s A CHRISTMAS CAROL were experimented with. FLUTE and CAROL, as they became known, were decided on and I persuaded Mannie Manim to give us the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town for an initial run before the Young Vic.
The two works are universal morality tales seen through a South African prism and A CHRISTMAS CAROL - IKRISMAS KHEROL especially is about the affirmation of humanity and core moral values in the midst of gross material disparity.
Happily, it worked and the two productions were rapturously received in Cape Town and London – deservedly so with such an extraordinary cast. The Baxter Theatre experienced some of its most integrated audiences yet for both productions. At the Young Vic they became two of the fastest selling shows in its history.
In February 2008, THE MAGIC FLUTE - IMPEMPE YOMLINGO transferred to the Duke of York’s theatre for an acclaimed West End season and won the 2008 Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival.
After its run here the Company will tour THE MAGIC FLUTE - IMPEMPE YOMLINGO, and other productions, in Japan and around the world, acting as an ambassador for South African talent. The company is also hard at work on a new musical that tells the story of the birth and death of apartheid through the music of that time. We hope our new show will play in South Africa at venues around the country to coincide with the 2010 World Cup. It will remind visitors and South Africans alike, through the medium of entertainment, of the extraordinary story of the fight against apartheid and the miraculous near peaceful transition to democracy. Given the problems facing South Africa I feel it is a story that needs to be retold now to remind everyone of the scale of that achievement and as an act of affirmation of the power of all who live there and love their country to pull together for a truly democratic South Africa.
But while overseas acclaim is all very well and all very exciting, the future of Isango Portobello cannot be assured without a groundswell of support from its home-patch. Not necessarily from the State, but from audiences and South African industry and commerce. Enjoy the show!
Eric Abraham, Producer
Autumn, 2008