Artscape's Production in Cape Town, February 2016. Directed by Mandla Mbothwe.

The Robben Island Bible Reading for the 67th Annual Shakespeare Festival at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater 405 W 55th St, New York, New York 10019

The Robben Island Bible, a unique theatrical piece by Matthew Hahn that speaks to the resilience of human spirit as well as the timelessness and resonance of Shakespeare, had its New York premiere as part of Hofstra University’s 67th Annual Shakespeare Festival on Monday, February 22, at 7:00pm directed by A. Dean Irby.

Robben Island Bible

Hahn’s play centers on Sonny Venkatratham, who was imprisoned on Robben Island from 1972-1978. During a time when inmates were briefly permitted to have a book, other than a religious text with them, Venkatratham asked his wife to send The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Venkatratham then passed the book to a number of his fellow political prisoners in the single cells. Each of them marked his favorite passage in the Complete Works and signed it with the date. Ultimately, the volume held 32 signatures, including those of Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada and Mac Maharaj, all luminaries in the struggle for a democratic South Africa.

The signed passages provide fascinating insight into the minds of those political prisoners who fought for the transformation of South Africa. Julius Caesar, Hamlet and The Tempest emerged as the most popular texts, focusing on issues such as loyalty, betrayal and assassination. The Robben Island Bible has been performed in venues around the globe, most recently in August 2015 in Soweto at an Ethical Leadership Workshop, and in November 2015 in the UK to help launch a Global Shakespeare master’s program at Warwick College.

Matthew Hahn

Mr. Hahn was a visiting professor in Hofstra’s Department of Drama and Dance for the week of February 22, to guest speak in Hofstra classes, attend rehearsals and the performances of The Robben Island Bible and the Hofstra Shakespeare Festival and participate in the University’s Civil Rights Day. He currently serves as a theater director, drama lecturer and workshop leader in the UK and Africa. He is a senior lecturer at St. Mary’s University where he teaches on the Theatre for Development modules. He also works for Theatre for a Change in Malawi and has directed several productions in London and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Hofstra University’s Shakespeare Festival began in 1950, and throughout its long history the Festival has presented a varied selection of the plays of William Shakespeare, lesser-known short plays from the period, musicales, and scenes from Shakespeare’s plays performed by high school groups from the greater New York area. This year’s main production is As You Like It, February 18-28, and there will be a one-hour adaptation of Hamlet, directed by Jean Dobie Giebel, The Play’s the Thing, on February 25 and 27. 

Rivonia Four Honoured in the UK

By John Battersby

Denis Goldberg and Ahmed "Kathy Kathrada", once branded as terrorists and criminals by the British government, were embraced and their life achievements celebrated in the hallowed inner sanctum of the British establishment this week.

The two Rivonia octogenarians – and their 90-year-old colleague Andrew Mlangeni who was unable to fly to the UK for health reasons –  were awarded the City of London's highest honour at a moving ceremony attended by the Lord Mayor of the City of London in Guildhall, the administrative headquarters of the City of London Corporation, on Wednesday.

They were joined by the two surviving members of the Rivonia legal team, George Bizos and Lord Joel Joffe, who were honoured in the same way and accompanied their former clients during a whirlwind three days of events.

Lord Joffe, who was the instructing attorney in the Rivonia trial and wrote the definitive book on the trial, described advocate (barrister) George Bizos as one of the greatest "silks" of his generation and a "brilliant strategist".

Joffe, the leading South African philanthropist in the UK, invited 50 guests to the gala evening to recognise their key role in the anti-apartheid struggle. He has devoted much of his life to ensure that the
role of Bram Fischer as head of the Rivonia legal team is given due recognition.

The highpoints of the extraordinary visit of the Rivonia veterans included a 30-minute meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron at 10 Downing Street, a gala event at London's premier Grosvenor House Hotel attended by 750 people, a packed panel event at The Guardian newspaper and a meeting with lawyers at the House of Lords.

Cameron praised their leadership and courage following a 30-minute conversation with the four and Baroness Patricia Scotland, now Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, praised them for having sacrificed their own lives and freedom for the freedom of others.

At the gala evening, one of the keynote speakers - Makaziwe Mandela, the late Nelson Mandela's eldest daughter - praised the Rivonia veterans for "speaking truth to power even when it is their own government".

She said that her father dreamed of a "glorious new South Africa" in which there would be no betrayal of colleagues.

"We children paid a price but it was worth it," Mandela said. "Today we have a better quality of life."

Baroness Scotland, the first woman and the first black Briton to occupy the role of Attorney General of England and Wales (2007-2010), said that Nelson Mandela and his colleagues in the Rivonia trial had personally inspired her to become a lawyer.

"Each of you are the embodiment of freedom because you gave up your own freedom for the freedom of others," said Baroness Scotland who is also the first black woman to be an alderman (councillor) in the City of London.

"For giving me my freedom it is a great honour to be part of a ceremony awarding you the Freedom of the City of London," she said.

At the Guildhall ceremony, which follows traditions dating back to the 13th century, the four Rivonia heroes were required to swear allegiance to the Queen and were presented with little books instructing them
how to be good citizens. Goldberg winked in the direction of the audience in several occasions and kept his fingers crossed.

Being a Freeman of London, which once held great practical advantages for being allowed to trade freely in the City, is now of purely symbolic value. It allows Freeman to drive their sheep across London Bridge to the Smithfield meat market.

Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu were both recipients of the award as was the Bafana Captain Aaron Mokoena in 2010 and former South African High Commissioner Zola Skweyiya.

Denis Goldberg, whose task was to build up arms and ammunition for the violent overthrow of the apartheid state in the 1960's, was the de facto spokesman for the group and entertained his hosts with his
down-to-earth frankness in defending the actions and intentions of the Rivonia insurrectionists.

"There was never any doubt in our minds that apartheid would die before we did," he said.

"The only surprise was that it took so long," said Goldberg who called in a BBC interview during his visit for a renewal of the leadership of the African National Congress at every level of Government.

"I have no regrets about what we did – not one," he said. "But we could have done better...we could have done it more effectively."

Goldberg was speaking at a panel chaired by Lord Hain of Neath, himself a leading anti-apartheid campaigner who led the stop-the-tour boycott and went on to become Leader of the House of Commons and was enobled last year as a labour Peer. Hain was three times a Minister in the last Labour Government.

The visit was the brainchild of Sir Nicholas Stadlen, a retired British High Court judge who interviewed Denis Goldberg for the Guardian newspaper three years ago and became fascinated with the Rivonia trial
and its central place in South Africa's transition as well as its lessons for a troubled world.

As a former High Court Judge, Stadlen was particularly intrigued with the paradox which was central to the South African dilemma: that in order to improve or eradicate unjust apartheid laws and oppression, the
Rivonia group had no option but to break the law.

Stadlen has over the past three years recorded scores of filmed interviews with all the key players, lawyers and associates of the Rivonia group including the three surviving veterans, the legal team, and the
family of Bram Fischer, the brilliant lawyer and underground activist, who headed the legal team in the Rivonia trial. The footage will form the basis of an upcoming documentary on the Rivonia trial.

Stadlen is currently working on a book on Bram Fischer during a 12-month sabbatical at Oxford University.

He is planning to create an interactive website under the umbrella of a charity know as "Life is Wonderful" which was also the name of the gala event on Monday night. It captures the moment of sentence in the
Rivonia trial which was literally a matter of life and death.

Goldberg's wife called out to him: What is it? "Life," he replied. "Life is Wonderful.

Stadlen's mission is to load his and other materials which tell the Rivonia story on the world wide web to make it accessible to a wider global audience and particularly to the youth and leaders of tomorrow to
inspire them with the qualities exemplified by the Rivonia group: courage, commitment integrity, selflessness and belief that the interests of the community are paramount.

In response to questions, Goldberg said that it took the apartheid government 15 years to realise that they would have an easier time in the international arena if they treated the political prisoners with dignity
rather than systematically humiliating them by rationing food and having different levels of prison uninforms to the prisoner's racial group.

Goldberg quoted Winston Churchill's threats to eradicate Nazism by "setting Europe ablaze from end to end". So it was in the fight against apartheid racism, he said.

"There comes a point where there is no option but to take up arms," he said. "Armed struggle can be justified. There is no universal rule.  It depends on the circumstances," Goldberg said noting that the ANC's violence was limited to targeting the violence of the state and was never aimed at "soft targets".

Asked whether whites had been instrumental in upholding the apartheid state by one of a group of 35 senior school pupils who attended the events at Downing Street and Guildhall, Goldberg said that whites had voted in successive National Party governments but he noted that victims of apartheid included Africans, coloureds and Indians and those whites who actively protested against apartheid.

"As a white, I benefitted from being white, everything wasopen to me," he said. "It wasn't open to be fellow South Africans who were black," he said. "There is racism everywhere but in South Africa, racism was
the law."

Goldberg, the son of a trade unionist father and seamstress mother, said he was politicised at a young age by the paradox of white South Africans going to fight against Nazi racism in Europe while upholding racism at home.

"I followed Nelson Mandela because it was the right thing to do. I had a conscience. I followed him so l closely that I ended up in jail."

Kathrada said that there were three key elements that made Mandela such a potent leader.

Firstly, he made clear to us that in prison we were no longer leaders and could not give instructions to those outside.

"He made it clear that it was our job to look after those who were in prison," he said.

Secondly, Mandela said that the focus of their struggle in prison should not be directed against the systematic humiliation they were subjected to in jail but that they should keep their focus on the long-term
objectives.

Thirdly, Mandela participated personally in the various hunger-strikes that were held in prison.

The visit was sponsored by the City of London and a gala event in aid of the global charity Global Citizen which runs campaigns and lobbies with governments to end poverty in line with the UN Millennium Development Goals.

The audience was studded with celebrities and former Prime Ministers including former Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the former Prime Minister of Denmark.

The proceeds of the fundraising gala will be divided amongst the charitable foundations of the three Rivonia veterans and Global Citizen.

Goldberg said that Mandela should not be canonised as a saint but rather as an exceptional leader who was able to achieve his objectives through tactics and strategy and was able, therefore, to mobilise

people against injustice not only for South Africa but for the whole world.

http://www.globalsouthafricans.com/latest/720-rivonia-four-honoured-in-the-uk.html

The Ethical Leadership Workshop based on The Robben Island Bible play

Matthew Hahn (Senior Lecturer of Drama and Applied Theatre, at St Mary’s University, London) is leading a team of practitioners who has put together workshops to explore the theme of Ethical Leadership with young people through the works of William Shakespeare as well as verbatim interviews with former political prisoners on Robben Island. 

The Ethical Leadership Workshop based on The Robben Island Bible play had it pilot at the South West Gauteng College in Soweto, South Africa in August 2014.  It ran over two weeks and delivered a presentation / performance of Shakespeare, monologues from the former political prisoners’ interviews as well as new pieces of writing created by the college students.  The students examined the current leadership situation on a personal, local & national level.  They also examined and reflected on their responsibility as young leaders as well as future leaders within South Africa.

These workshops have been inspired by South African Sonny Venkatrathnam, a former political prisoner on Robben Island and critic of the current political state of affairs within South Africa  and utilizing his copy of ‘William Shakespeare’s Complete Works,’[1] the team has come together over a shared believe that there is a dearth of ethical leadership in today’s world.  As inspirational as many of the chosen quotes were about leadership, according to Sonny, many of the men who chose these quotes whilst in prison and who are now currently in politics or business within South Africa have not lived up to such inspiration and have caused great harm to this young democratic country.  

But unethical leadership is not unique to South Africa.  From dictatorships that pockmark Africa, to a Nobel Prize winning president who condone the use of drones to drop bombs on countries thousands of miles away, to the abandonment of a green agenda in the United Kingdom, many world leaders are driven by short-term goals and personal wealth creation rather than true – ethical – leadership.  The Ethical Leadership Workshop has been set up as a direct response to such difficulties found in South Africa as well as the rest of the world by examining ethical leadership whilst young people are still in education.

Shakespeare’s characters portray this wide range of ethical leaders.  From Richard III and Macbeth whose inner demons drove them to the height of leadership at any cost to Henry IV who seeks to lead from the middle through consultation with his men before going into battle.

Political prisoners, like Shakespeare’s ‘Henry IV’, sought to learn from each other the foundation of ethical leadership whist on Robben Island.  From interviews, many of the men describe their time Robben Island as a ‘University’ where the men taught and learned from each other using the literature of Shakespeare, Sophocles and Marx amongst others.  Twenty years into a South African democracy, these men also reflect on how far they have come and how far they still have to go before true democracy is achieved for the masses and whether or not it was all worth it.

The Ethical Leadership Workshop is very flexible in it delivery.  It can consist of drama workshops, seminars and academic courses that would examine Shakespearean texts aimed at young people in schools, colleges or universities. The students examine what lessons can be learned and applied by today’s and tomorrow’s leaders.  Shakespeare's texts have been used in the past to explore how a good leader is formed, applies his or her vision and beliefs, behaves and manages the people and situations around him or her.  We want to build on this work, using interviews that Hahn conducted with men who were imprisoned on Robben Island to focus the minds and hearts of tomorrow’s leaders on the price one pays for truly transformational, inspired, ethical and sustainable leadership.  From a dramatist’s perspective, we would explore use of voice, space & body to highlight how a leader might be a source of inspiration to others.

The aim or the workshop is to benefit the students through being inspired to be better leaders through the words of Shakespeare & the former political prisoners and to create a pathway to future leadership.  If possible and of benefit, Hahn would be interested in working with local teachers to help shape & develop it in ways in which they think is best for their students.  He would be keen to work with them to finely develop the workshops.  The project is quite flexible in terms of deliverability. 

For more information about the lead facilitator, Matthew Hahn, please visit:

uk.linkedin.com/in/hahnmatthew1

www.MatthewHahn.org

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[1] Sonny Venkatrathnam, political prisoner on Robben Island during the 1970’s, had a copy of ‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare’ whilst on the island. The book’s ‘fame’ resides in the fact that Venkatrathnam passed it to a number of his fellow political prisoners in the Leadership Section on Robben Island. Each of them marked his favourite passage in the ‘Complete Works’ and signed it with the date. It contains thirty-two signatures, including those of Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada and Mac Maharaj, all luminaries in the struggle for a democratic South Africa.  See www.RobbenIslandBible.co.uk for further details.

South Africa's heritage can boost unity

 Published: 25 September 2015

Living heritage could help to promote a positive African identity in a globalising world, Deputy President, Cyril Ramaphosa said at the official National Heritage Day celebration held in Limpopo on 24 September.

One nation

"We are called upon as a nation to embrace each other's cultures, to practise each other's cultures, to learn and understand each other's languages, so that we can speedily increase the cohesion that we are trying to build," he said.

This year's Heritage Day had the theme "Our indigenous knowledge, our heritage: towards the identification, promotion and preservation of South Africa's living heritage". "We have rich diversity and culture. Let us display to the world that indeed we are a cohesive, one nation," he said.

Song and dance

Heritage Day was observed with colourful traditional clothing and performances across South Africa and by South Africans across the world.

In London, High Commissioner Obed Mlaba welcomed guests to South Africa House and in his address said “living heritage plays an important role in promoting cultural diversity social cohesion and reconciliation, peace and economic development.”

The High Commissioner said “It is important for South Africans to reclaim, restore and preserve our living heritage.”

The event included a diverse panel discussion with Roland Azor a South African Diversity consultant based in Brighton, Souleyman Garcia, who has made programmes filmed in South Africa, Njabulo Madlala, a dynamic South African baritone singer based in London who runs an annual singing competition in South Africa under his Amazwi Omzansi Africa banner, Angela Harvey, a teacher, facilitator, mentor, Film Maker, Performance Poet and Singer, Matthew Hahn, whose play, The Robben Island Bible has been performed in the UK, US and South Africa and who has recently facilitated a pilot 'Ethical Leadership' workshop in Soweto and Catherine Elliot a South African who is writing a thesis based on her ongoing research into the South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland collections at the British Museum. The dialogue was fascilitated by Makeda Coaston, a strong champion for cultural equity in the arts and heritage sectors.

The event was rounded off by a musical performance and guests mingled into the afternoon.

http://globalsouthafricans.com/latest/658-south-africa-s-heritage-can-boost-unity.html

Global Shakespeare launched at the Barbican

 Published: 14 November 2014

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Click here to listen to a podcast with Professor David Schalkwyk on the Robben Island Shakespeare

Queen Mary University of London and University of Warwick last night (13 November) launched Global Shakespeare at a sold out event at the Barbican. The event included a reading of Matthew Hahn’s play, the Robben Island Bible, based on passages chosen from a copy of Shakespeare’s complete works by the prisoners on Robben Island, South Africa.

A research and teaching collaboration, Global Shakespeare aims to shape the future agenda in Shakespeare studies across criticism, performance, history, media and popular culture.

Global Shakespeare critically explores and celebrates how Shakespeare’s work is translated, adapted and performed in other cultures. Global Shakespeare Director, Professor David Schalkwyk says that the partnership is fundamentally about challenging the notion that “Shakespeare belongs to a single language, culture or people”.

“Whether London or Lahore, we aim to shine a light on the truly global nature of Shakespeare’s work. It is our belief that there is no pure or true way to interpret or perform Shakespeare’s text. The meaning and understanding of his work is culturally specific, and Global Shakespeare seeks to understand and celebrate that reality,” said Professor Schalkwyk.

Current Global Shakespeare initiatives include a collaboration with the People’s Palace Projectson Shakespeare in Brazil; a partnership with Dash Arts on a multi-lingual production of King Lear; a celebration in 2016 of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth; and the 500th anniversary of the Venetian Ghetto.

According to Jerry Brotton, QMUL Professor of English and Associate Director of Global Shakespeare, the project “will make it possible to see Shakespeare in his world and ours. Our research, teaching, and public engagement will help us understand the translation of Shakespeare’s work from the Globe to countries, cultures and communities all over the world. Our ambition is unique, as is our scale: no other project brings together such a diverse group of scholars and students working on the global and intercultural nature of Shakespeare.”

Upcoming international activities include a 2016 conference on Global Shakespeare with the University of Cape Town, a 2015 exhibition and series of performances in London of the British Black and Asian Shakespeare’s Multi-Cultural Shakespeare: 1930-2010, and a 2015 symposium on Shakespeare in China.

Future research projects include the use of Shakespeare to investigate the history of the emotions; an extensive “connected communities” project to explore Shakespeare, human rights and areas of conflict; and a series of performance-based workshops with translators to forge closer links between translators, actors and scholars.

Sources: www.folger.edu and www.qmul.ac.uk

http://globalsouthafricans.com/latest/397-global-shakespeare-launched-at-the-barbican.html

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.