A Night of Legends

We have been wanting to go to the legendary Market Theatre since we arrived in Joburg. We'd been waiting for something uniquely South African. Legendary even. And we got it when the legendary Mbongeni Ngema returned to the stage to tell the story of legendary South African warriors in The Zulu.

The Market Theater was opened in 1976, operating as an independent, non-racial theatre during the country’s apartheid regime. It is named for the site on which it stands, which was originally a produce market, also known as the Old Indian Market or the Newtown Market, which closed after 60 years of trade and relocated to another part of the city.
 
Over the years the Market Theatre hosted a number of internationally acclaimed artists including Athol Fugard. It has also introduced the works of many of South Africa’s leading playwrights and directors, including Matsemela Manaka, Reza de Wet, Welcome Msomi, Zakes Mda, Pieter-Dirk Uys, Gibson Kente, Paul Slabolepszy, Adam Small, PG du Plessis, Kessie Govender, Bartho Smit, Maishe Maponya, Percy Mtwa, Deon Opperman and Mbongeni Ngema.

The Theatre's twenty-one international and over three hundred South African theatre awards bears eloquent testimony to the courage and artistic quality of its work. During the past three decades, The Market Theatre has evolved into a cultural complex for theatre, music, and dance. Today, The Market Theatre remains at the forefront of South African theatre, actively encouraging new works that continue to reach international stages.

Mbongeni Ngema is probably best known in the United States for his Broadway production of Sarafina! The musical was nominated for five Tony Awards and the original cast recording was nominated for a Grammy Award. Sarafina! won eleven NAACP Awards and was adapted into a feature film which co-starred Whoopie Goldberg, Miriam Makeba and Ngema himself.

We saw Ngema's historic new tour de force, The Zulu, on the final performance of its limited run at the Market Theatre. The Zulu started out as a successful musical before its current dramatic incarnation. The Zulu had its world premiere at the 2013 National Arts Festival in Grahamstown this summer and had a ground-breaking season in Zululand before continuing its run at the Market Theater.

Writer and Co-Producer Ngema, one of the giants of South African theatre, returned to the stage as an actor for the first time in 27 years in The Zulu. Primarily a one-man show, in about two hours Mbongeni Ngema recreated the birth of the Zulu nation and the often violent struggle against rival tribes and foreign domination in South Africa. He was aided by a musical accompanist and assistant storyteller, Matshitshi Ngema.

the bare stage

“The Zulu follows the story of my musical of the same title, only in more depth,” says Ngema. “My new show has been in the creative pipeline for several years. It is inspired by the experiences I had as a small child, listening to the wonderful stories of heroic deeds that my great-grandmother, oka Mkhulutshana Manqele, shared with me. Her skills as a story-teller kept a wealth of our history alive."

It was a riveting night of theatre. And one filled with legends.