The mutual respect between highly acclaimed actor, Andrew Buckland, and his former student Brink Scholtz is evident throughout the interviews about their upcoming collaboration with Ubom! Eastern Cape Theatre Company.
The mutual respect between highly acclaimed actor, Andrew Buckland, and his former student Brink Scholtz is evident throughout the interviews about their upcoming collaboration with Ubom! Eastern Cape Theatre Company.
As resident director for the company, Scholtz is directing Buckland and the six Ubom! actors in Breed, a play that will be performed during the National Arts Festival and the subsequent Schools Festival.
Breed is about the effects a stranger has on a group of people living in a deserted house miles from nowhere. In the script, which is being workshopped and developed by the actors and the director as they rehearse,
the stranger breeds dogs that are ultimately destined for the dark underworld of dog fighting.
Scholtz describes the unusual storyline as, “a comedy drama. There’s a lot of absurd humour and it’s fairly dark, there’s definitely a strong dramatic tension and a dramatic line.”
Buckland, who plays the stranger, was only able to join the tightly knit company three weeks after they began working together, so in some ways his late arrival matches his role as the outsider in the play.
He is a stranger in other ways too because although he had previously collaborated as co- writer and co-director with Scholtz, he is older than her and most members of the cast.
Buckland says that the notion of actors workshopping a script through the rehearsal process is not that unusual anymore because it recognises “that human beings themselves are a source for drama and that actors are not interpreting artists, they’re creative artists”.
But he acknowledges that such a process can lead to “scripting by committee” and that it requires a really strong director who has experience in this kind of work.
He says that Scholtz easily fulfils that requirement.“She’s got a very good theatrical eye, she can write but she’s also very good at setting up situations amongst the actors where they do produce work.
Look, in the process of it we produce a whole lot of crap, but you produce a lot of material in which gems start to appear, first thing you do, you throw those gems away and see what’s left and scratch a bit further away.”
Breed is somewhat of a role reversal for Buckland and Scholtz because he has directed her in previous productions.
However they both appear to be happy with the current situation as Buckland says that acting is what he loves the most. “It’s what I do best. I do it better than teaching or directing or any of those.
That’s where I feel my strength. I’m delighted to be able just to just engage with that. It beats working for a living.” Scholtz is quite effusive in describing her feelings about working with Buckland.
She says: “It’s absolutely incredible! It’s amazing!” but admits that she did have some reservations in the beginning of this project.
“It was very intimidating at first but he just makes it so comfortable. He makes one at ease so much. Yes and we’re still very much collaborators, he’s still very much in there shaping the vision of the work as well.
Yes, so it’s still very much an equal relationship.” Breed will be shown at the Glennie Hall on:
22 June at 9pm
24 Jun at 10am
26 June at 4pm and 10pm
28 June at 12.30pm and 8.30pm
29 June at 8pm
30 June at 2pm
2 July at 12.30pm
3 July at 10am
4 July at 6pm
