|
By Kgomotso Moncho
Sello Maake ka Ncube successfully directed Patrick Marber's Closer 10 years ago with an all-white cast. A decade later he's at it again, but this time it's with an all-black young cast.
Made famous by the 2004 film of the same name directed by Mike Nichols, with the stellar casting of Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen and Jude Law, the play takes a strong hard look at relationships through two couples whose lives become interestingly entangled.
Because of this, Closer has been compared to Mozart's, Cosi fan tutte and there are references to the opera in the plot and soundtrack.
Here the play is set in Durban and Dan, Larry, Anna and Alice will probably get African surnames. Speaking to Siyabonga Radebe and Linda Sokhulu about Closer's new hue, what they had to say can be summarized in the question: What's black got to do with it?
"We can't run away from the fact that the original play is set in Britain. But the idea of relationships is not a foreign one. Relationships are all challenging, confusing and need a lot of understanding and compromise," says Radebe, a drama graduate from the Durban University of Technology and an up-and-coming stand up comedian.
Sokhulu adds: "Together with the director we debated what being black brings to this production. That led to us asking each other so many questions about what it means to be black. You have black people from the rural areas, suburbs and townships and they're all different. So the answer cannot be summed up into one word. It's inevitable that we're influenced by our environment."
Sokhulu has been in soaps like Generations and Rhythm City as well as the drama series, Sokhulu and Partners, for which she won a Safta award. She tries to do at least one play a year and has just been in Phyllis Klotz's Animal Farm.
For Maake it's about getting new nuances from actors' experiences.
"Sello encouraged us to look for the truth and honesty of the character from within ourselves. That's where the difference will come from. The same message still applies. Love is hard and seeing how hard it is for someone else, makes you see that's how life works."
· Closer opens at the Market Theatre on March 25.
 Published on the web by Tonight on March 23, 2010. |