SPICE DRUM BEAT: GHOEMA. To 27 January.
London
SPICE DRUM BEAT: GHOEMA
by Daniel Kramer and Taliep Petersen
Tricycle Theatre To 27 January 2007
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Sat 4pm
BSL Signed 16 Jan
Runs 2hr 10min One interval
TICKETS: 020 7328 1000
www.tricycle.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 13 December
Sit back – or forward – and enjoy the Beat.
The Ghoema (pronounced ‘gooma’) is a portable drum long popular around Cape Town. Manufactured from a vat, its mix of practical origin and musical energy makes it a fitting centrepiece for Daniel Kramer’s musical trip through the history of Cape settlements, slavery and musical tradition - all influenced by the highly-profitable spice trade which brought Portuguese, then Dutch, merchants, who in turn imported slaves to the Cape.
At first, it seems, Kramer wanted to write a play about this. He opens with the 2 women cast members inviting us to a New Year celebration, mixing-bowl in hand; sit back and enjoy hearing about our ancestor-slaves one ambiguously says. But the piece soon swerves into a musical history lesson, a series of explanatory notes for the real reason to be there: the music itself. Especially when it’s played, sung and danced with terrific energy and skill by this cast.
As the Dutch appropriate the new language of Afrikaans, the Black people encode their saucy or subversive messages within the words they sing with such happy vivacity to entertain the boss class, or simply to enjoy themselves.
Later times bring the English (Queen Victoria approved for freeing slaves) and Americans. And they import the Minstrel bands of blacked-up white singers (briefly and hilariously parodied by the cast with shaving-foam encircled mouths). There’s a richly-sung verse of ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot’, a magnificent piece of tonal architecture, demolished when its ersatz seriousness transforms to a genuine Black-created number whizzing vivaciously along.
Kramer’s ended up writing not much of a play, but a fascinating if fragmentary history viewed from the underside of a society and showing survival, craft and the overflow of human creativity and social expression through song. In doing so he’s provided the platform for an exuberantly melodic concert, giving a social context to both words and music.
His energetic cast turn hands, feet and mouths unflaggingly to dance, song and humour in this kaleidoscopic torrent of tradition and innovation. Trust the Trike, once again, to come up with something entirely different from everywhere else, that mixes social awareness with theatrical verve.
Cast: Jody Abrahams, Loukmaan Adams, Munthir Dullisear, Zenobia Kloppers, Carmen Maarman
Musicians: Danny Butler, Gammie Lakay, Howard Links, Solly Martin, Charlie Rhode
Director: Daniel Kramer
Designer: Julian Adams
Lighting: Gert du Preez, David Kramer
Sound: Akbar Khan, Graham Muir
Musical Director: Taliep Petersen
Costume: Illka Louw
Choreography: Loukmaan Adams
Puppets: Jesse Kramer
Animation: Gregg & Angela Coppen-Iaminawe
2006-12-16 10:24:55