Making filmic magic with CineSouth Studios
This past week, the stage of the Drama Factory was turned into a film set as the TCC joined forces with CineSouth Studios to commence the pilot stage of an exciting new project: Speak Me A Speech!
The brainchild of acclaimed filmmaker Victor van Aswegen (Sculpting This Earth, Displaced, Coast) and the TCC’s Chris Thurman, Speak Me A Speech will be a platform for promoting the richness of South Africa’s language landscape and some of the country’s finest acting talents. Incorporating a range of monologues selected from Shakespeare’s plays, the project will include performances in twelve South African languages - drawing on existing translations and commissioning new versions of familiar (and less well-known) Shakespeare texts.
There was only one way to begin: with the brilliance of Buhle Ngaba and Anelisa Phewa, the TCC’s resident artists for 2021 and 2022 respectively.
Speak Me A Speech - but first, make me a coffee! Victor van Aswegen and Anelisa Phewa on the first morning of shooting.
Wannabe barista Chris Thurman works up a sweat piloting the Drama Factory’s coffee machines.
Time to get serious: Anelisa Phewa on set.
Phewa, whose recent work as a translator from English into isiZulu straddles Shakespeare, Netflix and SpongeBob SquarePants, turned his attention from Shakespeare’s sonnets (the subject of his ongoing research as a Masters student at Wits University) to Sir Thomas More. Written collaboratively, this play contains a stirring speech by the title character that is generally attributed to Shakespeare. In it, More appeals to a crowd of Londoners participating in the anti-immigrant riots of 1517. Commonly referred to as “The Stranger’s Case”, the monologue is a stirring critique of xenophobia which strikes a chord amid resurgent populist nationalism in many parts of the world - but it has a particular resonance in South Africa. Phewa’s performance of his isiZulu translation of the speech is both inspiring and sobering.
Ngaba has long cherished the dream of sharing Sol Plaatje’s remarkable Setswana translation of Julius Caesar with the South African public. Turning to her grandmother’s well-worn copy of Dintshontsho tsa bo-Juliuse Kesara (first published in 1937, five years after Plaatje’s death), Ngaba selected Portia’s impassioned speech to Brutus from Act 2, Scene 1. Working with Setswana language expert and Plaatje scholar (and fellow TCC affiliate) Sabata-mpho Mokae, Ngaba navigated the occasional distance between Plaatje’s idiomatic language and Setswana as it is used today. Together with director Nikki Pilkington, she found in Plaatje’s “Porotia” not a dated and marginal character but a powerful figure whose words speak to the present moment.
A “good” sign to start day two of shooting: Nikki Pilkington and Buhle Ngaba arrive at the Drama Factory.
Buhle/Porotia under the watchful eyes of Nikki and Victor.
And that’s a wrap! (For now.)
We can’t wait to share these fantastic short films with viewers around the country and around the world. Watch this space - there is much more to come!