Enjoying a supporting role

When a beaming Bongile Mantsai made his acceptance speech two weeks ago at Artscape, after receiving his Fleur Du Cap award for best supporting actor in the play Woyzeck, he did so in Xhosa – much to the delight of many of his colleagues in the audience.

“I started thanking the Lord,” says Mantsai. “I am a pastor in my church (St Paul’s in Khayamandi, Stellenbosch) and I thanked Roger (Roger Jungblut, a businessman and philanthropist who funded Woyzeck), Mamma Lara (Lara Foot, the director of Woyzeck) and the cast.”

Mantsai says he is happy he got the nod as supporting actor as opposed to leading actor because he has always seen himself in a supporting role – collaborating with others in ensemble projects.

The Fleur du Cap is one of many prestigious awards he has received in his 12 years on the boards. Fluent in Xhosa, English and Afrikaans, he has done many shows on the Afrikaans festival circuit and worked with the likes of Brett Bailey and Martinus Basson and with the Remix Dance Theatre. He is also a talented musician, dancer and choreographer. As the musical director for Woyzeck and Karoo Moose, Foot’s previous groundbreaking production, he conjured up stirring scores to interface with her magical lyrical imagery. He was nominated for a 2007 Naledi award for his musical direction of Karoo Moose.

It has been a hugely varied career. Mantsai, 30, learnt his skills on the job. Wherever and whenever he could, he watched and learned from working alongside people such as Foot and Basson and his actor colleagues. There was a stint at Jazzart.

He has picked up skills in multiple disciplines and is reluctant to tag himself as an actor or dancer or musician. How about theatre artist? Yes, that will do nicely.

Now is the time to step back from the stage and give back to the industry. He is doing that as part of a team of three which is spearheading the Baxter’s Zabalaza Festival. The others are actors Zoleka Helesi and Thami Mbongo. The trio have worked extensively together in the past.

Zabalaza (“to strive” in Xhosa) grew out of what used to be called the Ikhwezi Festival – the Baxter’s community theatre project. Recently, it was decided to rebrand the festival and this called for a new name and dynamic team to make it happen.

“I am very excited about Zabalaza. A lot of talent in communities is not shown (on mainstream stages) and Zabalaza is about taking the Baxter to people,” says Mantsai. “One of our key things is to say to people, ‘right, the Baxter is coming to you’.”

In previous years, theatre groups submitted a synopses of their plays for consideration and the selected plays were staged at the Baxter.

The Zabalaza platform has changed that. Now they go to see plays being performed – in halls, living rooms, schools and community centres.

“From December, we have visited 62 groups,” Mantsai said.

A selection of those plays are being staged at mini festivals this weekend. The first was held yesterday at the Zolani Centre in Nyanga East and today another batch of plays is being showcased at Lookout Hill in Khayelitsha.

The groups that make the cut will then be mentored by the Zabalaza team and others brought in by the Baxter to hone texts, add music or choreography. The best of the best will be staged at the Baxter in June.

The festival is about creating audiences for new work but even that is not simple. Mantsai says township audiences like to go to events and when they are putting the main festival together in June at the Baxter, they will need to take this into consideration.

As an illustration of this, he tells of a woman he knows who went on a rant about having got her clothes ironed, made a lunch box and then schlepped all the way to the Baxter to watch a play that was over in an hour.

The Baxter is busy with a radical make-over of its restaurant and bar areas with sexy white leather, wood and metal, and I ask if the Zabalaza team would consider adding a food component to the festival. The cappuccino is excellent and the food looks great, so you could be inspired by a play and then eat and drink and this would mean you wouldn’t have to go home after an hour.

Mantsai savours his cappuccino and replies that this is certainly a possibility.

l For info about the Zabalaza Festival, see www.baxter.co.za or call 021 680 3980.