Mumbo Jumbo: to 19 July
London
MUMBO JUMBO
by Brett Bailey
Third World Bunfight at Barbican Theatre To 19 July 2003
Mon-Sat 7.45pm
Runs 1hr 30min No interval
TICKETS: 020 7638 8891
www.barbican.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 14 July 2003
Exciting moments but the variety of moods don't always cohere and the points are made before the show is over.
As a largely white audience sits in front of this Black South African troupe, being addressed directly, the question arises: who's being ethnic here?
As a Narrator introduces his 'real' self, and a Christian cleric, complete with female Gospel quartet, other questions of reality emerge through Brett Bailey's mix of song, dance and story. In 1992 a Xhosa sangoma (the title indicates a combined political and spiritual leader) received a message through a Hurricane Spirit to travel to Britain and bring home the severed head of a Xhosa chief murdered by the colonial power in the 1830s.
Turned down for finance by Nelson Mandela, he was instead sponsored by Coca Cola and South African Breweries (Mandela's telephoned promise of possible future finance is the wickedest of the openly satirical sections). Arriving in Britain, the sangoma was forwarded to Inverness, where indeed a skull emerged. While there, he was documented by TV, here represented by a camera-headed creature and a couple of devils, indicating that, with the diabolic, Sky's the limit.
Of course, it's elegant. And of course there's wonderful singing and dancing, right up to the final, all-too-short stick dance. And a sceptical strain runs throughout, right up to the crudely parodied scientists who declare the skull's that of a Scotswoman, and anyway only they are allowed to keep such an object.
But the skull's of vital significance in another scale of beliefs. The scale that believes in ancestral voices whispering truths from the dead. That believes South Africa's current woes can only be overcome by calming the angry spirit through the skull's return from colonial burial.
Whether this organic Elgin Marble will ever put down crime, violence and HIV remains to be seen. The loose form Bailey adopts has its intriguing moments, but some are merely large-scale crude agitprop. There's a stylistic echo of Scotland's own socialist theatre company 7:84 some 25 years back in mixing comment and ceilidh (here, joyous handclapping). But the piece is too rambling to make a point worth the length and too often uncertain in tone to keep up the sheer verve of performance.
Performed by;
Monde Abey Xakwe, Sibongile Mfunda, Siyanda Bewula, Phumla Mrubata, Xola Mda, Odidi Mfenyana, Terence Masixole Nojilla, Ntombe thongo tutsuy, Nothemba Nongauza, Ace Bonde, Zolaka Helesi, Tiny Tebeho Matsau Ka Ngaleka, Mhinhi Mabona, Bongani Magatyana, Nox Donyeli, Lumka Mafu, Mxolisi Bosvark, Lefa Booza Letsika, Ntshimane Letswaalo, Thembani Luzipho, Nomvula Nqiningama, Vukile Ka Handula
Director/Designer: Brett Bailey
Lighting: Guy Nelson
Musical arranger: Bongani Magatyana
Choreographer: Ace Bonde
Voice coach: Liz Mills, Sarah Woodward
2003-07-16 08:18:05