The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists swaps race for class, England for Africa, and make-believe for an alternate reality. Who says theatre is all melodrama? It’s also song and dance!
Theatre is an interesting lens on life. Obviously make-believe, it uses its audience’s suspension of reality to share things. One of those things is entertainment. Another of those things is education. When the two blend well, theatre can help us believe in a life less laden with struggle and emblazoned instead with song and dance, even for ragged trousered philanthropists.
The most recent production at The Fugard Theatre from Isango Portobello Company looked at local history through the subtle subterfuge of a superimposed text. It’s was based on Robert Tressell’s 1914 novel of the same name, and carefully rewritten for local audiences by Stephen Lowe. Under director Mark Dornford-May and music directors Pauline Malefane and Mandisi Dyantyis, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (Izigwili Ezidlakazelayo) became a group of painters dealing with life and labour issues in 1950s Cape Town. They earned minimum wage while their bosses make a packet and some of them were none too happy about it.
It’d be a mistake to have been fooled by the singing and dancing in “Isango’s unique musical style”. The musical incisively explored the tender, tempestuous issues of class and its psychological ramifications, compromising nothing on consciousness despite being soaked in song. At times witty, at times controversial, it resonated with universal themes of altruism and the psychology of status despite being based on a novel set and written in England over a hundred years ago. The re-contextualised tale stressed the global phenomenon of citizens of a certain standing being encouraged “to distrust their own thoughts and to rely on those of their “betters”.
The play also explored some of the roots of social mobilisation, especially pertinent in a country with economically entrenched inequality and advanced labour laws. What would the South Africa labour force be like today without trade unions? Possibly a lot more ragged-trousered than it is now.
Whether your politics is black or white, socialist or capitalist, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’ inherent tensions and triumphs told a tale we can learn from and enjoy.
More about the production
The multi-award winning Isango Portobello is known for hit productions like The Magic Flute – Impempe Yomlingo, The Mysteries – Yiimimangaliso and Aesop’s Fables and has also recently produced A Christmas Carol – Ikrismas Kherol. A Christmas Carol and The Magic Flute won the Whatsonstage Theatregoers’ Choice Award for Best Off-West End Production. The Magic Flute then won an Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival.
Portobello Productions set up Isango Portobello in 2006 in collaboration with Golden Bear award-winning director Mark Dornford-May to create a space for film and theatre to focus on South African talent for a global audience. Isango Portobello’s performers are typically from Cape Town and surrounds. The company tends to take classics from the Western theatre and reinterpret them in an African setting. Their approach is developmental, allowing performers the chance to grow with them, and is strongly music based.
Mark Dornford-May, the Artistic Director of Isango Portobello, is a theatre and opera director with over twenty-five years’ experience. In the last four years, he worked on creating the lyric theatre company Dimpho Di Kopane, directed all its stage productions, notably, Carmen and Yiimimangaliso – The Mysteries. u-Carmen eKhayelitsha was also his first feature film, which saw him nominated for Outstanding Director of a Musical for the 2005 Drama Desk Awards; receiving the Golden Bear for Best Film in Berlin 2005, the award for Best Feature at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles; and was awarded a Golden Thumb by America’s Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert.
Special offer to Creative Cape Town newsletter readers
To emphasise how important its audiences are, Isango Portobello offered a special ticket discount of R80 per person for Creative Cape Town readers. (The standard ticket price for these performances if R130).
