The street is our theatre
By Farzana Rasool (CueOnline) & Bram Janssen (CueBlog)
Two street kids with white-painted faces, are trying to make a living miming in High Street and Church Square. One passer-by accidently knocks one of the boys with his elbow but the mime doesn’t move. Two minutes later a young girl with a blank face tugs at another mime’s matted wig and again: no response.
Athenkosi Khima (13 ) and Siyanda Ntamo (11) are little mimes who are invisble, ignored and get no reaction.
Performing
Khima stands outside a shop at the top of High Street, face painted white. His oversized pale pink blazer covers his skinny arms and his feminine wig sits on his head, a mess of tangled hair. He holds his unnatural position next to his friends and tries to lose his animate nature. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t even blink.
He does what should naturally be too difficult for any boy his age to do. He stands completely still and is silent the whole time. He moves only when a few coins are tossed into the used coffee cup at his feet. He does a little jig for less than ten seconds and then changes to another equally unnatural pose. The rare onlookers clap and cheer when he puts on this spectacle, encouraging him to go from being human to just an object.
Walking tour
After fifteen minutes the boy moves further down High Street with Ntamo following him silently. Khima does his routine gimmick and then hands over his blazer and wig to Ntamo, who puts them on straight away. Ntamo looks just like Khima did one minute ago: he is now the mime in the pink blazer and wig.
They don’t have watches and there is no secert signal but they move a couple of meters down the street every fifteen minutes. Along the way they pass several young mimes who can hardly be distinguished from themselves. For spectators, none of them are identifyable.
Characters
Passers-by seldom give them more than a single glance, despite the characters they try to portray: old men with big bellies and walking sticks, smart women with pink blazers and styled hair, just white-faced statues. They are anything but themselves.
There’s a buzz of excitement in front of a little antique shop: the mimes here have electric blue lips and eyebrows, yellow-tinted sunglasses and brighter costumes.
The biggest audience Khima and Ntamo get are other children. They put on their performance for these children and are no different from actors on a big stage. Young spectators stand and pose with them like they would next to a monument or cartoon character at Disney Land.
Curtain call
This is street theatre one won’t find listed in the official programme but is very much a part of Fest. After all, what would the Festival be without its ever-amusing band of shivering, white-faced mimes on display?
All actors have to put away the props and remove the stage make-up at some point. Khima puts down the coffee cup, throws away the stick and rubs the paint from his face. He hands over the blazer and wig to his even younger understudy. His shift is over.
Click on a photo in the slideshow to see a bigger version with captions.
Slideshow: Bram Janssen
