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Hands Off/ Hands On by Quanita Adams
Quanita Adams writes in her personal capacity on what social justice and Empatheatre theatre work means to her.
Three weeks spent travelling the city with Boxes has left an indelible impression on me. Cutting a swathe across class, language, culture, as well as the geography of the city presented us with many opportunities to share our little play-thing, and also listen, hear, and most importantly – learn.
Every day, for sometimes three times a day, we would pack up our world into six boxes, shove those into a car, pile in, and head to our venue – a school hall, a recreational hall, an open space in an occupied hospital, long since defunct. With every performance, the boxes would get tattier, (they seemed to diminish in number) the costumes crinklier, the red grape juice that stood in for red wine all the more fermented. After every performance what we left behind was a cardboard sign, emblazoned with the slogan ‘HANDS OFF’ in red paint.
After a particularly charged talk-back at a high school in Belhar, we got word the next day that some feisty young learners – girls, young women – bandied together to form a debate society. The need to discuss important things, share ideas had become urgent so as to propel them to action. I felt an overwhelming sense of pride, knowing that we had facilitated, or at the very least precipitated that for them. The fact that they were young women made my heart want to burst.
HANDS ON
[That very morning, on the way to the school, we had driven past what was clearly a crime scene – a man (I assume) under that white sheet, his feet crossed at the ankles – a detail I still cannot shake.]
Then the next school, a private girl’s school in the leafy green southern suburbs. Privilege. At once familiar – I had come from a similar school – and woefully unfamiliar – bunnies hopped us down a cobbled avenue to the drama school where we would ultimately perform. Bunnies. Hopped. As I stared at the legs, crossed at the ankle, I couldn’t help but notice how many dark legs were still seemingly trapped behind stockings so many shades lighter. I stifled a chuckle and thought – seriously?! they’re still not making stockings for us? Surely not! Words like barely beige, and grecian blonde echoed through my mind and it took some work to regain focus. But focus we did. And the show went on and the talk back was so much more dynamic than I thought it would be. Somewhere at some point in the talk-back, which to then had gone predictably, a young woman, in the back, who looked like a young me, hair out and curly, challenged her peers to carefully consider what it means to frequent the Biscuit Mill – gentrification central. The question electrified the room, and the timbre of the comments changed. Again the cry- but what do we do, how do we stop this happening, how can we create diverse thriving communities? When we pointed out that in fact the school grounds and surrounds now occupy what used to be one such community, murmurs filled the room. Finally, when a young shy student asked how to attend to voices that feel silenced by the dominant voices, saying the same thing – it occurred to me that theatre, particularly this kind of applied theatre would be ideal. I came up with the idea that the learners create monologues, or even dialogues, that they be anonymous, and then randomly blind choose from all the written pieces, and perform them. This would be a way to introduce new voices, new discussions, new approaches to discussions and re-energise debates that were happening. We left with promises to return, run workshops. Again, the bunnies saw us out.
Then Cissie Gool House happened. The occupied hospital, crammed with people in various stages of un-housed. Displaced, removed, moved, evicted, homeless. Tethered together by the shared experience of what it means to be on the wrong side of where politic and property collide in this city. House rules, updates, testimonies, singing, rallying battle cries, and toddlers cries rang out into the night, and we settled into performing our piece, as ever in the round. A camping torch somehow strung up to add to the florescent light that shone above us. The crowd was with us. It was visceral. They hated the Property Developer, and many seemed incapable of separating actor from character – testament to Mark’s acting – booing, jeering, responding throughout. They were vocal during the couple’s fight, pendulous, as the crowd agreed with Lorrie, then applauded Kay when the argument went her way. By the time Auntie Sumaya made her journey from fatigued resignation to reignited vigour, the crowd were all but on their feet. Her final call to arms drowned out by everything from cheering, to howling. I felt buoyed. I cried. During the talk-back a woman said she felt reminded that her place was there, in this struggle. To keep fighting, in spite of her battle weary spirit. We had not forgotten them. And they were charged. That night it took Neil almost an hour to leave – so many people wanted to talk, to share. I had to drag him away. It was powerful what had happened. On our way out, two women lamented having to run the gauntlet of waiting on Woodstock main road at that time of night. They were going to where they lived. It would take them 2 taxis. It was not lost on any of us.
At UCT performing to educators was peculiar. Criticism and critique. Much talk of autonomy of text. Theatre as a pedagogical tool. But who would own the work? I raised the idea that theatre is in fact the opposite of that. It is not autonomy, but community. Its very collaborative nature necessarily means that every delivery, every performance is a conspiracy between performer and audience. It is never the same. It is mercurial. I suggested that perhaps it is why it can be an incredibly powerful pedagogical tool. Its capacity for empathy lends itself to engaging with information in a dynamic way. I believe people hear and understand things differently, more intensely. But that could just be because I am an actor...
And for all the questions and comments and concerns of – what is the point, what do I believe, why do we not provide answers – my answer is the same: I am a pebble. My job is to get to the bottom of the water. A consequence of that drop, is ripples, seismic waves that radiate out, increasing in intensity and strength. At best it will gather momentum and become a wave, ushering change. At minimum, the same pebble dropped enough times will cause a steady stream and smooth stones. I can’t control the waves, the ripples, the tides. All I can do is get things going. Get to the bottom of the thing. Kick up mud and silt and things that have settled. The dirt.
Much like the Jenga – the central theatrical image/idea (which garnered as many responses and ideas as there were people who commented on it) we spent weeks pulling apart a structure of a thing. Then it toppled. Then we gathered. Then we start again.
Quanita Adams 2019
Empatheatre with support from the Bertha House, is excited to be hosting a screening and post-film discussion around Complicite’s film Can I Live? at the Bertha House cinema in Cape Town on the 12th of October from 16:00 - 19:30.
Empatheatre and Mbazwana Creative Arts (MCA)in association with Amehlo Productions are proud to present a short documentary film centring on the devising of their acclaimed musical theatrical production Umkhosi Wenala .
How do we make sense of the violent histories that mark our past? This play, Isidlamlilo, forces us to engage seriously with this question. Depending on your own relationship with our violent history, this play awakens a profound and at times unsettling realization that history is a living breathing force in all our lives. Isidlamlilo is set in the dying days of Apartheid, and in the present democratic South Africa.