Cue Online (Grahamstown)
Christina Kennedy
8 July 2009
Grahamstown — Ntshieng Mokgoro's The Olive Tree heralds the arrival of a fresh, forceful new voice on the South African theatre scene. She is the 2009 Standard Bank Young Artist for Drama, and her vision is a truly intoxicating one.
Like the central motif of the tree in her play, Ntshieng's storytelling is rooted in an African magical-realist aesthetic - fertile ground for her landscape of robust poetry, mythology, music and indigenous symbolism.
Kudos to the Young Artist adjudicators for recognising and rewarding the talent of this community theatre stalwart, who is now deservedly being given a professional platform for her work. The Olive Tree is languid and meditative in parts, drawing the audience into its twin worlds of metaphor and reality, yet it skips along at a fairly brisk pace, with its simple story being told in a shade over an hour. This is as long as it needs: there is no long-windedness at play here.
Assisting Mokgoro in bringing to life her earthy tale of the "sins of the mothers" being revisited on the daughters is mentor-director Clare Stopford, choreographer and fellow Young Artist laureate Portia Mashego, lighting designer Nomvula Molepo and set and costume designer Sasha Ehlers. Ehlers's set in particular must be singled out for praise: she has always excelled at evoking dreamscapes flecked with traditional imagery.
The Olive Tree tells of four generations of women, who are caught up in a recurring cycle of hatred and recrimination. Warona Seane, who was masterful in Athol Fugard's Nongogo, plays the matriarch who is tortured by dark secrets and beseeches the spirit of the huge olive tree to intervene.
Dark Spiritual elements Clad in red, with beaded braids and a scarlet shawl, she is stained by her blighted past - and her daughter and granddaughter are destined to become similarly sullied if she does not stop the rot in its tracks. Her daughter's name - Babylon, after the doomed and immoral biblical city - and her granddaughter's name - Naledi, meaning "shining star" - both hint at the plagues and hopes of this beleaguered family.
There are some deep, dark secrets tormenting these women, and while this fable may focus on a specific family, it hits home in an African and a universal context too. Those who do not learn from their mistakes, the play warns, are destined to repeat them. There is a strong spiritual element to the play, with purity of intent and motive melding with ritual cleansing in a bid to purge the past. A concise but satisfying visual and narrative delight, it shows how the vortex of sin and bitterness can be reversed.
Rich in symbolism, yet simple enough to connect strongly with all audiences, The Olive Tree is unpretentious and displays a clarity of mind and purpose, as well as a focused treatment of themes, that is rarely seen these days. The all-female cast - Seane, Ferry Jele, Tsholofelo Motsikoe and Khutjo Mmola - does a creditable job in helping realise this vision.
Mokgoro's writing displays a delicate, magical touch in the vein of Yael Farber and Helen Iskander that will no doubt greatly contribute to the revitalisation of the domestic theatre scene.
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