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Johannesburg - At 53, veteran actor James Ngcobo only grudgingly accepts the adjective. But given his impressive and vast body of work, it would be remiss of us to describe the accomplished thespian as anything but a veteran.
He’s such a decorated actor he’s now moved to the other end of the camera, to work as a director. He’s just emerging from a nine-year stint as artistic director at the Market Theatre.
“I had never as a young actor had in mind the thought of running theatres but as a young actor I always knew I wanted to direct.”
He thinks there was just something about the job of a director. He’s just been so enamoured with the role that even when he wasn’t working, he’d be at the theatre watching the magicians at work, “even when I was not called in”.
It is therefore no surprise that he’s directed anyone from the crème de la crème to the budding young stars; John Kani, Robert Whitehead, Pamela Nomvete, Vusi Kunene, Jamie Bartlett, Zola Nombona, Thuso Mbedu, the list is endless.
He remembers saying to those who asked: “I just wanna see. I was always curious to see how a director was working with other people I was going to go on stage with when I wasn’t in the room. That was going to help me understand the size and magnitude of what I was supposed to do as an actor.”
His diction is good like he’s playing a role. He’s the actor’s actor. It is a no-brainer that it had to be him moving from one side of the camera to the other, with seamless ease. He was not formally trained in drama, he says, but he waxes lyrical about the drama schools in the country and the talent they churned out.
“I never went to university. I was an actor who always felt I was behind everybody. I’ve always wanted to learn as much as possible. I’ve never been complacent. I’ve always been driven by curiosity and humility to learn from people around me. I’m the guy who is not afraid to ask how things are done, and why,” he said.
“When you lose the whys and the hows, something will die inside of me. So when I direct, I suffer insomnia, and I keep asking myself how much of what is on the script I understand. I never come up with preconceived ideas. I read it.”
Humility is one of his favourite words.
“I’m receptive to people questioning my methods. Theatre without discovery is death. I just love mentoring young people. You must have the generosity to pass on the things you know. Why must you be the only person who knows something about a subject? There’s an influx of people that are coming out of universities (and he is happy to mentor them).”
There is a clarion call from the government for us to create employment for young people, Ngcobo says. The passing of the baton should be easy to happen, he thinks. He was artistic director at Arts Alive. He worked with the late Hugh Masekela a lot. Before the Market Theatre where he was artistic director, he worked for a company in Europe, the work of which took him to 19 cities on the continent.
For someone who never received formal training in drama and arts, he says, it was just magic waking up in Amsterdam, taking the train to Brussels or London to work for a day and back. He was “working with people who are ahead of us in terms of the industry”.
He speaks like management now: “Theatres are about bums on the seats, all over the world.”
He is now seized with getting funds to stage plays and this is a daily thought, fuelled by an adrenaline rush. Does it help that an artistic director, the guy who runs theatres, is a former actor?
“I think it does. You don’t just have someone who has empathy for the theatre, but one who knows how things are done.”
He knows of “amazing artistic directors who have never been actors, the same way football coach Jose Mourinho has never played top-flight football. “But look at what he’s done. But to answer you, it really helps to have people in that space who were actors.”
He cites the example of Cameroon where Youssou N’Dour who became the minister of arts and culture. “It’s just the most perfect thing and suddenly the sector now has a minister who blows horns, who understands”.
The saddest place to be is a country that doesn’t tell its own stories, Ngcobo says. “Theatre helps with the memory of a people. The nations that run the world are those who are clear with their memory. It breaks my heart to hear people ascribe memory to ‘ancient things’”.
The father of two sons, says he loves bouncing ideas about memory with them, something he learnt at the knee of his maternal grandmother, now since departed.
He speaks at length about memory and how it helps him direct when working with actors who are conversant with their backgrounds.
“What turns me on is an actor who is like a dog with a bone. That kind of actor is a gift to the audience. They witness life, not acting.”
He watches a lot of plays. He speaks glowingly of “The Red on the Rainbow”, a play by Vice Motshabi, “a young man I look up to”.
He’s a reader. He’s adapted books to stage plays, from Fred Khumalo to James Baldwin. He started with Esk’ia Mphahlele, he hastens to say. He’s currently reading Ayi Kwei Armah and one from a Surinamese writer. “We can’t be myopic.”
He’s acted in and directed works from Mali, Nigeria and France, among others, and in all sorts of languages, including Igbo, Yoruba and French.
He’s all about “taking the audience on a journey with you” and there is no doubt those who will visit the three theatres he manages - Joburg, Soweto, and Roodepoort – will always be in for a treat. The future of stage acting is in good hands.
He mentions Siyabonga Thwala and Warren Masemola a few times, in fact, a lot. Other names roll off his tongue but he considers Owen Sejake the quintessential actor. Patrick Shai comes a close second. He’s aware of his mortality so he avoids boring people.
“What if that is the last person I see before I die?"