Casting Announcement - The Robben Island Bible at the Barbican

On 13 November, a short extract from The Robben Island Bible will be held at the Barbican Theatre in London as part of the opening of the Global Shakespeare Centre at Queen Mary's University, London.

I am pleased to announce that Maryam Hamdi will be joining the reading again after her performance in Glasgow as part of the opening of the Commonwealth Games in July.  Joining Maryam will be actors Richard Peppple and  Waleed Akhtar.

Global Shakespeare will launch on 13th November

Queen Mary University of London and the University of Warwick will launch Global Shakespeare at The Barbican, London on Thursday 13th November at 6.00pm. This collaboration aims to transform the research agenda on Shakespeare for the 21^st Century by exploring the writer’s extraordinary dissemination and appropriation in cultures and languages across the world, in text, performance, film and new media.
Opening addresses by Professor Jonathan Bate, Provost of Worcester College, University of Oxford and Professor David Schalkwyk, Academic Director for Global Shakespeare.


There will be a play reading from Matthew Hahn’s play, The Robben Island Bible, based on the copy of Shakespeare signed by apartheid prisoners on Robben Island (including Nelson Mandela), and featured in the British Library exhibition, “Shakespeare—Staging the World” in 2012.

Formal proceedings will be following by a drinks reception in the Conservatory Terrace. The event will conclude at 8.00pm.


If you are interested in attending please register your attendance using the following link: http://bit.ly/1pM2BXS

Opening up the Robben Island Bible

12 September 2014

PHOTO: FARANAAZ VRAAGOM

Last month, the APC’s special event, ‘A Conversation on The Robben Island Bible’, attracted a large audience and lively debate. We felt especially honoured to welcome ex-prisoners, Khwedi Mkhaliphi, who attended with his wife, Ruth Mkhaliphi, the artist Lionel Davis (also a formerly banned person) and Yasien Mohamed. Both Davis and Mohamed are well-known tour guides on Robben Island. The event was organised and chaired by APC Honorary Research Fellow, Dr June Bam.
The presentation evolved around the play, The Robben Island Bible, by British playwright and lecturer at St Mary’s University in London, Matthew Hahn. Hahn also presented video clips of the interviews he did with former political prisoners of the Island, as well as clips of staged readings of scenes from his play. These included the passages of Shakespeare’s Complete Works, which were marked by the prisoners as meaningful for them, on request of Sonny Venkatrathnam. The book was brought to Venkatrathnam by his wife, Theresa, during his time of incarceration. While on the Island, he disguised it as a ‘religious book’ with Hindu religious motifs pasted onto it. According to Venkatrathnam, the warders feared two things: ‘the authorities, and God’. Hahn introduced his work in conversation with Robben Island CEO Sibongiseni Mkhize, and global Shakespeare scholar David Schalkwyk.
In recalling his ‘first encounter’ with the book, Hahn recollected the detail of the scent of eucalyptus leaves that emanated from between the pages, carrying the trace and scent of the Island. Speaking of the often controversial memories the interviews with ex-political prisoners brought to the fore, Hahn said that the genre of drama is especially able to embrace the multidirectional and, at times, conflicting memories of the ex-political prisoners – ‘since this is (also) what makes a good drama.’
Hahn sees the book as a repository of traces, resonating with hints of the thoughts and concerns of the prisoners at specific moments in time, which he then translated into the staged readings, which we viewedviewed – for instance, SB Benghu’s choice of a passage in Henry V that speaks of tolerance, of different elements that constitute a whole, or Chuk Iwuji’s reading of Wilton Mkwayi’s choice of Malvolio’s utterances from Twelfth Night. At the APC event, Khwedi Mkalipi read his selection of Puck from A MidsummerNight’s Dream. 
Of course, Nelson Mandela’s choice was included in the clips, which, as we hear it today, resounds profoundly with his Rivonia Trial speech:
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
The CEO of Robben Island Museum, Sibongiseni Mkhize, drew the audience’s attention to the question of how we think of and represent Robben Island today, especially in the light of the deeper history of the Island: ‘Robben Island is not reducible to the Robben Island of the political prisoners under apartheid,’ he said, and spoke of the Island’s first-known political prisoner, the Khoisan leader and interpreter, Autshumao. He also spoke of the location’s history as a place of banishment for people infected with leprosy, and as a place of exile for early political prisoners, including women (such as the Khoisan interpreter, Krotoa), and unwanted persons as far back as the 17^th century; of Imam Sayed Abdurahman Moturu, who was exiled to the Island in the 1740s, and imprisoned religious and political leaders from the Eastern Cape during the Frontier Wars of the 19^th century – including the much revered Xhosa prophet and leader, Nxele Makana, who drowned while trying to escape with others from the Island.
Mkhize reminded us that, even when speaking of the recent past, we often exclude political prisoners, like Robert Sobukwe, but also internees from Namibia, Botswana and Mozambique. Who, he asked, is honoured as a political prisoner today? In illustrating this point, he drew attention to the large number of detainees under apartheid, many of whom (women and white male political prisoners) were not incarcerated on the Island but on the mainland. Mkhize’s insightful interventions led to a robust discussion of the politics of representation.
The second respondent, David Schalkwyk, distinctively put into perspective the meaning of the ‘Robben Island Bible’ for the political prisoners: firstly, he made clear that it does not appear in any of the memoirs of the political prisoners he knows. Secondly, he recalled the position of an ANC politician, who asserted that the prisoners at the time were: ‘inspired by the Freedom Charter, not by Shakespeare…’
Lionel Davis, who has been a visitors’ guide at Robben Island’s educational centre for many years, asked: ‘What do young South Africans take from the Island?’ He posed a further related question as to whether this World Heritage Site was still an important point of identification for young South Africans.
In answer to this, Khwedi Mkhaliphi spoke of the past struggle as an anchor for identification, of the bravery, faith, deprivation of the prisoners, of ‘not reading the newspaper, not knowing what was happening in the country and in the world’. He also pointed to the role of women in the struggle, as fighters, yet also as the wives and girlfriends of those confined to the Island; of these women being followed and spied on. ‘How come [is it],’ he asked, ‘that now the only person who played a role in the struggle [at least in international discourses] is Mandela?’
Hopefully, as Hahn’s staged readings and play circulate, it will become clearer and clearer to audiences around the world that this was not the reality of South Africa’s broad-based struggle against the injustices of apartheid.  

Video of reading at Michael Oak School, Cape Town presented by The Shakespeare Society of South Africa (Cape Town branch).

Here is the link to the reading performed on 22 August at Michael Oak School, Cape Town presented by The Shakespeare Society of South Africa (Cape Town branch).  Maurice Podbrey produced and cast the play.  Actors were Vaneshran Arumugam, Andile Nebulane, Andrew Roux & Chi Mhende.  It was attended by students from Michael Oak School, Bergvliet High, Constantia Waldorf and Stellenbosch Waldorf Schools. 

The work continues in Johannesburg

I am so pleased to hear that the Southwest Gauteng College and their students have continued to work in the community centre for homeless young men in Johannesburg. 

I was so impressed with their work during the ‘Ethical Leadership’ workshop that they facilitated a drama workshop with me later in the week in Maboneng.

It is so important that this sort of work becomes sustainable and with the energy of these young students and the support of their college, it is my hope that these workshops can continue.

Below is a recent email from one of the SWGC students and below that from the gentleman who runs the homeless shelter:

Dear Matthew
 
Trust all is good that side and hope you are missing us this side. 
 
We had gone to see the boys on Friday the 12th. We spent half the day
with them and it was fun. The most fun part as we went with the group
that was in workshop(hope you still remember them all) we were about 9
in number and....as if that isn't good enough..the College borrowed us
their mini bus to use..(That was great!!!!)

 
Most of those faces we met with you have left. So Friday we
saw new faces and they had as much fun as we had with them. We had
activities lined up and played games and they were delighted.
 
Seems like the College is going to help out in this in terms of
assisting the boys in shaping their future. Mr Mojela is also
instrumental in guiding us as to how to get the school on board. This
seems like a wonderful journey that you have started for us.. We thank
u again and hope you will visit again soon.
  
Be well Matthew,we miss you and thank you for everything.
 
Kind,Warm Regards,
Xanadu
 
----
 

Mr Mojela,

We were greatly privileged by your visit to the centre. Your programme is valuable to our vision to give children a future. As I told you, we might not always have children who qualify, but we will always in touch for the few that we come across. It is unfortunate that I didn't manage to sit throughout your presentation on Friday. Please be encouraged to come back as soon as you students have something they can share with our boys.

Kind regards

Todd

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - meeting another of those most gentle of men, Eddie Daniels

What an honour to have met another one of Sonny's 'Bible's signatories, Eddie 'Matthew' Daniels ['Matthew', he tells me, was his nom de guerre in the Liberation Movement].  In 2010, Masie & Tod Higgenson interviewed him whilst I was in Johannesburg working with actors at the Market Theatre Labortory.

Winson, from the Cape Town Shakespeare Soceity, and I picked him up from his home in Sommerset West.  As I entered into his sitting room, I noticed right away a photograph that had pride of place in this room was of him diving off of a ship into the Arctic Ocean.  This photograph was taken last month!  85 and still going strong.  An amazing person and a most gentle of souls.

Archive & Public Culture Research Initiative Paper delivered at the University of Cape Town, 21 August 2014

On the 21st of August, I was invited by the  Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cape Town to present a paper on the research & development of the play, The Robben Island Bible, with a specific focus on archive & heritage through the voices of the men & women whom I interviewed for the play in 2008 & 2010.  Much of the presentation was clips from the original interviews and readings of the play.  I examined how archive and culture played [and continues to play] a major role in the development and presentation of the play, its research and the supporting workshops on 'Ethical Leadership.'

I was joined by Professor David Schalkwyk, Academic Director, Global Shakespeare, Queen Mary University of London and University of Warwick and former lecturer at the University of Cape Town.  I know David through his book, Hamlet's Dream;  I was also joined by  Sibongiseni Mkhize, the CEO of the Robben Island Museum for a Q & A that followed the presentation.

I was honoured to have in the audience Kwedie Mkalipi, a former political prisoner on Robben Island as well as a signatoree of Sonny's 'Bible'.  I had the honour of interviewing him in 2008.