Cantos of a Life in Exile: Theatre
Venue: Amazwi South African Museum of Literature
Next performance: Thursday 03 July 20:00
Review
By Ntombekhaya BusukuÂ
Cantos of a Life in Exile is a brilliant Solo performance that is written, performed, and directed by Makhaola Ndebele. The show marries storytelling, poetry, and songs to explore exile, memory, and the search for home. The performance is deeply rooted in rich Southern Africa oral traditions of storytelling, and the story portrays a story of a resilient young man who tries to find his identity across borders. Cantos is a moving reflection of Cultural inheritance, displacement, and a journey to rediscover what and where home truly is.
In his storytelling he marries English and Sotho and I wasn’t sure if I was going to understand the story when the performer opened with a Sotho chant. But I closed my eyes and listened to the song and the words and surprisingly began to understand his moving portrayal of each event of his life.
The story was set in different parts of the world, and Ndebele uses a different accent for each period of his life. For example, he used African American accent to show us a point in time when he was in America. It felt like he was trying to complete a puzzle when he was putting different parts of his unstable life together into one piece. To add to the richness of his storytelling through different accents, he creates a variety of soundscapes, one of which – a horse – was a brilliant work of art that added a wonderful sense of authenticity of the story.
Ndebele pauses frequently as he recalls a memory and to grab the audience’s attention which I found frustrating, not because he was boring, but his story was so engaging that I was impatient to know what will happen next.
