Woza Albert is SA theatre at its best

Woza Albert!
SA State Theatre, Pretoria
R100 to R110 at webtickets.co.za
Until March 31
4 out of 5 stars

One of the easiest ways to tell if someone possesses talent is to strip away the frills around their particular discipline. In music, this is removing the obligatory autotune that even makes the likes of Beyoncé sound as if she is vocally gifted.

In theatre the test is how well a production delivers with very few props and audiovisual aids.

Impeccable storytellers Mbongeni Ngema and Percy Mtwa are pure geniuses as they deliver the protest theatre piece Woza Albert! What is impressive is how they tell the story.

Armed with nothing but a wardrobe of a few items of clothing, the pair go about narrating the idea of Jesus Christ’s second coming, with him landing in Johannesburg in the height of apartheid.

Various characters, such as brick factory workers and their foreman, unskilled labourers, an informal stall owner at a food market, a homeless lady, prisoners and other ordinary South Africans all give their perspective on what they would want Morena (Christ) to do for them.

Some want redemption for their sins, some want to be saved from the brutal hands of the oppressive government of the time and some simply do not believe in Morena at all.

Through satire and vernacular double entendres, Ngema and Mtwa demonstrate what perfectly executed physical theatre should look like. They realistically construct every scene with their gestures, sounds and calculated movements to make the audience believe they are part of the action on stage.

One of the highlights is when the two have boarded a Metrorail train and they are perfectly synchronised, vibrating and shaking at the same frequency, just like they would in a real coach.

Throughout the show, their heartfelt portrayal makes you feel how unjust it was for black people not to be able to freely access some parts of South Africa, thanks to the so-called passbook.

Their a cappella singing of struggle songs forces you to imagine just how tough it was for migrant labourers who had to leave their rural families to look for employment in the City of Gold.

You cannot help but feel sorry for the elderly whose entire lives wasted away, just because of the dark colour of their skin.

Admittedly, for some – especially the born-frees – the above-mentioned scenarios might sound unfamiliar, but if audiences look deep into the tale, they realise that South Africans are not that far removed from their wretched past.

We still have the majority of South Africans traversing the country from their homesteads to seek employment. We still have the haves and have-nots. We still have unskilled labourers at the corner of every second intersection, hoping that a bakkie will pull over, delivering a day’s wage, so they can feed their families.

The unfortunate brilliance of Woza Albert is that the idea of inequality in South Africa will not die. Instead, it just morphs from one form to another. It used to be racial, now it is all about class.

That is one of the most tear-jerking realisations audiences will have while taking it all in.

The show will leave you thinking about just how little a cast needs to tell a compelling story.