By Norm Dixon
DURBAN — Mbongeni Ngema's latest musical extravaganza, Magic at 4am, packed the Natal Playhouse here night after night for weeks until the final matinee performance on April 10. By the time the young cast had swarmed on to the stage for their exhilarating opening number, something like 500 people were still jammed in the foyer unable to get seats. So many turned up that one last show was hurriedly scheduled for that night.
The enthusiastic response to this musical by Durban's people was especially poignant because it squarely aims an exciting and entertaining forearm jolt at those black South Africans who have allowed themselves to become the tools of the opponents of democracy.
Just 15 or so kilometres away, those claiming to represent the "Zulu nation" have launched a vicious and brutal civil war against those who want only to cast their votes on April 27. Every performance was living proof that most Zulus here want peace and democracy.
Each night from my hotel room I could see the ramshackle buses and dozens of the ubiquitous "Zola Buds" (minibus taxis) dropping off hundreds of people, dressed to the nines, from their homes in the surrounding townships. The Wednesday and Sunday matinees were overrun by school kids. I decided to join them.
Most Australians are probably unaware of the prominence Mbongeni Ngema has achieved in South Africa, the US and Europe. Born in 1959, he spent his youth in rural Zululand and the impoverished townships of Durban. He taught himself to play the guitar at five years old. While working at a fertiliser plant in Natal, he was also an amateur actor.
He joined the acting company in Johannesburg of South Africa's major black theatre entrepreneur, Gibson Kente. After leaving Kente's company, he worked up a play based on the unlikely subject of the New Testament set in South Africa — Woza Albert. It was a roaring success at Johannesburg's Market Theatre and went on to tour the US. Ngema soon established his own theatre company, Committed Artists.
Magic is the fourth of his works with Committed Artists, following Asinamali based on the rent strikes in the townships in Durban, Township Fever about the militant 1987 rail workers' strike, and Sarafina, his most famous, which celebrates South Africa's youth in the struggle against apartheid.
On the surface, Magic is the story of the impact the greatest boxer of all time, Muhammad Ali, made on a group of Zulu hostel dwellers working at a Johannesburg gold mine. Ngema combines clever humour, sharply political lyrics, breathtaking choreography and the brilliant choral talent of the 27 young cast members with fabulous township jazz of the 12-member band, traditional Zulu songs and dances.
Without exception, every young singer who steps forward to sing the lead vocals eclipses just about anything you'll hear from any top pop star anywhere in the world. Leleti Khumalo, who appeared as the South African lead in the film version of Sarafina, simply dazzles. Another young woman, Thandi Zulu, just has to be heard to be believed. Throughout the two-and-a-half hour performance, the music hardly stops, and neither does the jiggling of your feet to the beat.
Ngema wanted to convey what a hero and role model Muhammad Ali was to young Africans in his youth. In 1974, he told Radio Metro, Ali fought George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire — the famous Rumble in the Jungle! Flamboyant fight promoter Don King convinced Zairean dictator Mobutu that such a major fight would give his country international publicity. For the fight to be broadcast live during prime time in the US, the it took place at 3am Zaire time, 4am in South Africa. There being no TV yet in South Africa, the young Ngema and his friends gathered at 4am to listen to the fight on the radio.
Muhammad Ali inspires Shaka Zulu (played by Bhoyi Ngema), an amateur boxer who works in the mines. He wants to be like Ali, he talks like Ali, dances like Ali. He was forced to leave his wife and twins, Sweetie and Sweetheart (Leleti Khumalo and Joyce Sothoane), behind in Zululand to find work in eGoli (city of gold). Orphaned when their mother is murdered, the twins set off to find their lost father, who they do not know and believe to be a coward.
In the mine compound Shaka becomes a great boxer; everybody calls him Ali. The workers are inspired by Shaka. Like Ali, who changed his "slave" name Cassius Clay and converted to Islam, Shaka is committed to the liberation of black people. Like Ali, who refused to fight in Vietnam, Shaka believes in the unity of the oppressed in the common fight for liberation. Like Ali, Shaka is a determined fighter with a philosophy of peace and unity.
This worries the mine owners. Shaka's biggest adversary is Shisa Boy, bought to the mine by the white foreman, a member of the security police, "to shut Shaka's big mouth". Shisa tells Shaka that he must "behave yourself and listen to white people". Everywhere they meet, they fight.
They meet twice in the ring. Their fights are reminiscent of the big fights between Muhammad Ali and "Smokin'" Joe Frazier. Shaka is beaten the first time. The compound and the township community rally around Shaka, now a symbol of freedom, and he triumphs in the second fight.
Shaka likens his struggle to that of the South African people: "The regime thought that the death of Steve Biko was the end of the fight, but it was just the 12th round. When they killed Chris Hani, another fighter who preached peace and unity, they were convinced they had won — it was the 14th round." The 15th round has started, Shaka declares.
Before Shaka can meet Shisa Boy in the third fight, scheduled for the magic hour of 4am, the foreman member of the Third Force gives Shisa a gun, and Shaka is murdered. Sweetie and Sweetheart don Shaka's boxing gloves and shorts, and with the mineworkers and township residents, pledge to carry on Shaka's (and Chris Hani's) fight to the end.
Magic at 4am is touring Britain in the coming months. Any reader who has the opportunity should not miss this show. My advice to any perceptive promoter or someone who has influence in one of Australia's arts festivals is to get Magic at 4am over there quick smart. A CD of the music is available here in South Africa (Kariba Records through Tusk Music Co) — talk to your local import shop.