Theatre giant Andrew Buckland is back with a spectacular bang as he presents three solo shows at the Market Theatre's Barney Simon, starting this week, until just days before Christmas.
He is also part of Ubom! the Eastern Cape Drama Company's Breed, playing as part of the State Theatre's Mzanzi Fela programme (on December 7 and 8 in the Arena, State Theatre, at 8pm).
"I started with the idea of (rotating) five solo productions, but then I thought about my age - 55 - and decided perhaps three would be enough!" A revival of Between the Teeth and Ugly Noo Noo and a first time run of Dario Fo's Mistero Buffo is the result, starting on Wednesday and running until December 19.
Andrew believes his performance drive was re-awakened the year he spent working with his son Daniel at Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas.
"I just loved using those physical skills again," he says. He was also inspired by the different artists, many of them Olympic athletes, he worked with. They had a particular work ethic and focus that was inspiring. "I'd forgotten how awesome it is to use your body as a source of creativity," he says and when he returned last year he was determined to keep working and exercising this particular side of his creativity.
Ever since he and wife Janet and their family moved to the Eastern Cape from Joburg a few decades back, Andrew has kept a foot in theatre. He was hugely successful on both a performance and academic level, culminating recently with his appointment as head of drama at Rhodes University. But this move also meant that too many years back, we were almost used to having a Buckland solo show pop up every once in a while, yet he has been sadly missing for far too long.
Listening to him speak about the Cirque experience, it's obvious it had a huge impact on him as a performer. "It was a little bit like performer boot camp," he explains.
Because it was a full year of consistent performances, he had to get to grips with a new kind of energy again. He loved every second of it and instead of wanting some time out from the stage, when he returned, he has been enthused and energised.
"I had a moment of hubris," he says about the decision to tackle this bumper season. But he's had a test season earlier this year in Cape Town and was pleased that it went well. He feels since his return he's become fearless about performance. It might have to do with age, but he again points to the international exposure and experience. "It shifted the way I think about everything," he says.
And perhaps with a little distance and insight, Andrew has managed to find some appreciation for his own performance. "I'm much happier performing," he says and finally he is doing this run for the "sheer joy of it".
He describes Ugly Noo Noo (first performed in the 1980s) as a sea change in his own work and it was the first of his now memorable solo shows. Returning to this work reminded him how much focus these shows require. "It's quite a solitary thing with just the actor engaging the audience," he explains. It deals with the violence combined with the fear of that time and what he discovered was that they |could harness laughter to |deal with that. "It's fun to |play now that I'm older," |he says as he has to engage different muscles. "I have to be more economical with my energy," he says, but he finds the technical tricks tantalising.
Between the Teeth was a response to the reaction of Noo Noo. "At the time I became very aware of my milieu, being a white middle class Joburg man. I thought about learning another language and started looking at the relationship between gestures and words. It was also about listening with your eyes," he explains.
While these works were a result of dark times during the extreme 1980s, they have no less impact |now. Andrew's work has always functioned on many different levels |and could simply be watched for the pure physical performance of it all.
"I love mixing the awkward and fearful with joy and the contradiction of laughter. "
The third work, Mistero Buffo, by Dario Fo, is something he knew he wanted to tackle. "I wanted to see how I would react to it as a performer," he says.
Working with his wife all these years, they have developed a wonderful working relationship.
"I know when I draw a laugh from Janet, it works. "
Finally, there's the two Ubom! performances at the State Theatre.
"I'm so thrilled to be doing Breed in Gauteng. " In the past he worked mostly as director with this group but this time, Janet took over from their former resident director Brink Scholtz because Andrew wanted to play.
"I'm a much better actor than director," he says and loves he being part of the cast of what he describes as a "very rich work".
The story follows two seemingly separate worlds: that of the poor squatters who are utterly desperate; and that of Desmond and his daughter Pearl. The impact |these two worlds have on each other illuminates current South Africa.
That's something Andrew has always done. He wants to change lives. He might make us howl with laughter both with performance and content, but when it's all come and gone, he will have us thinking about the lives we lead and the way we wish to live.
By Diane de Beer
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