Wow! What a fabulous show!
Ubuntu — the result of a theatrical collaboration between Canadian and South African actors — is poetic haunting lyrical yet has a really solid story at its core.
The play follows a young South African man on a quest to Canada to find the father who immigrated here him some 20 years previously.
Right away he encounters obstacles in his search. People he thought might be able to help track down his kin suspiciously claim they don’t recognize his father. And so the mystery of his father’s time in Canada begins…
The play flows seamlessly into the past and the audience meets the father a young biology student in Canada who sends money home every month to his young son. We meet the shy white woman with whom he falls in love. We see his increasingy despondency in Canada as he becomes disconnected from his South African home.
There are beautiful smooth transitions between past and present and poetic movement punctuates the story but never overwhelms it.
Some of the production’s best moments come when the South African characters expose brief snippets of their culture including a revealing scene between the father and the biology professor for whom he works in which they weigh the merits of traditional South African healers — called sangomas — against Western medicine.
There’s a bit of traditional African music throughout the show but I would have liked to hear even more. And I love the scene where the son connects with his ancestors for guidance through a sort of traditional dance that involves a lot of stomping.
Yes the story is somewhat improbable. Yes things are tied up a tad too neatly into a nice bow at the end of the play. Yes it takes a few minutes to acclimatize oneself to the show at the outset.
But that being said Ubuntu is a lovely moving theatrical experience.
Ubuntu (The Capetown Project) runs until January 15 at the Max Bell Theatre as part of High Performance Rodeo
