Two elephants and a Dodgy Clutch
Mary Alexander
7 December 2005After four weeks of development in the rural Eastern Cape, an eight-week tour of the UK and an extended run at the Edinburgh Festival, a remarkable production simply called Elephant is on at Johannesburg's Market Theatre.
Elephant is difficult to describe. It's dance, drama, music, puppetry, song, storytelling, comedy and tragedy, put together by an enthusiastic bunch of - mostly - young people, who clearly get a kick out of the show. The story is told with remarkable body puppets, brilliant acting and wonderful songs.
Possibly the most spectacular are the two life-size elephant puppets. Both subtle and ingenious, they convey the mood and movement of the animals without elaborate special effects. The full-size adult female, for example, is operated by a single person - and still able to convincingly charge the man with the gun to protect her calf.
The production tells of Chief Zanenvula, a good man and respected chief of his tribe, who has been forbidden entry to heaven. Distraught and uncomprehending, he calls on his ancestors for an answer. Go back and look at your past, they tell him. What do you see? As Chief Zanenvula reviews his life he comes to understand the choices he made, and why he made them.
The show is produced by the Dodgy Clutch Theatre Company, based in the northeast of England. Formed originally as a partnership between Elaine Beard and Ozzie Riley in 1982, the company produces new work in a popular form of visual theatre, combining music, dance, performance, mime and puppetry.
In 2004, five performer-musicians from South Africa joined with eight Dodgy Clutch artists to devise, create and rehearse Elephant over four weeks. The show was performed in a marquee in Saltwell Park, Gateshead for a week in August 2004 to enthusiastic audiences of adults and children.
For five weeks in April and May 2005 the company was based in Port Elizabeth, where they were joined by three more Eastern Cape performers. Here they rehearsed and developed the show to the next stage.
Malcolm Purkey of the Johannesburg Market Theatre spent a few days working with the director, Ozzie Riley, on the structure of the story. Simon Tarrant, musical director, developed and extensively improved the music.
Preview performances were shown in the Barn Theatre at the Port Elizabeth Opera House, the community hall in the Addo Elephant National Park, to a schools audience, and then at the Dance Factory in Johannesburg.
At the Johannesburg preview, director Ozzie Riley told the audience it was just a work in progress, and begged the tolerance of the audience. It wasn't necessary. Children and adults alike loved the show, and the enthusiasm and delight of the young cast had all enchanted.
Dodgy Clutch is working in schools in Eastern Cape, together with their partners Artists Teaching Initiatives, and in the UK in the Tees Valley. Children from both continents are sharing their creativity, ideas and enthusiasm in an international Arts in Education project.
The project will culminate in a series of performances at the Sage Gateshead for the World Culture Summit in June 2006, where children from South Africa will come together with children from northeast England in a dazzling multi-arts performance piece.
- Elephant is on at the Market Theatre from 7 December to 29 January.
