Portraits of Biko, the man behind the activists
By Kelly Adami, Cue newspaper reporter
Thirty-one years after his death Stephen Bantu Biko, founder of the Black Consciousness movement, lives again in the work of writer and director Martin Koboekae. But why choose Biko?
“I have always been struck by him as a very intellectual man. I am attracted to the humour and wit with which he saw everything, even when it was painful,” Koboekae says. Using non-violent symbolic and conventional theatre methods the play Biko: Where the Soul Resides, documents Biko’s activist life.
Startling observations
Although dealing with apartheid history, the work is not primarily political. “It is more about people, about his friends, and relationships and how he responded as a person to the system,” Koboekae says. “Through the literature that I accessed about Biko, I made startling observations about him that are normally taken for granted. I wanted to see Biko as a real person.”
It was Koboekae’s inclusion of relatively unknown information about Biko that caused controversy and resulted in the Biko Foundation denying support for the work. “They wanted me to create a play based strictly on facts. I write what I like, but the book is a collection of his own thoughts and articles which is one-sided, even though there is drama in that book, I wanted to see people oppose him … to interact with him.”
Inspiration
Koboekae’s inspiration for the piece came from a conversation he had at the 2006 National Arts Festival. “I was just sitting and chilling with friends and someone pointed out that actor Jonds Hlophe looks just like Steve Biko, so we wondered aloud if we could create a play about Biko’s life and cast Jonds as the lead,” recalls Koboekae. While the role of Biko is performed by actor Masoja Msiza, Hlophe subsequently became part of the production team.
Exploring scriptwriting
Koboekae, who is taking part in the Festival for the 17th consecutive year, has always been involved in theatre. “I started with writing. I wanted to act but because I wasn’t afforded opportunities to act, I decided to write my own scripts and cast myself in roles.” Koboekae’s writing now extends to television and radio scriptwriting as well as novel writing, a lot of which uses satire and humour to deal with difficult political issues.
But Biko is different: it aims to give a face to a political issue. “It’s a balance. I want people to be entertained. I want people, especially young ones, to learn about when we were unable to mix as we do now. I also want the older generation not to forget about a dark period in our history, because it happened. And lastly, I want to reintroduce the spirit of ubuntu.”
Read about the 30th anniversary of the murder of Biko in CueBlog 2007.
Pics by CuePix
Hi there does anyone kno the names of the cs that played at Grahamstown festival – it was an awsome poduction and realy enjoyed it!
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