Acting is my comfort zone - Molosi
Thalefang Charles | Friday September 26, 2014 16:29
Historian Sandy Grant writes in his book, Botswana And Its National Heritage, “In the years between 1885 and 1966, when Botswana was a British Protectorate there were two major events, which were etched into its popular consciousness. The first was the visit to the United Kingdom in 1895 of the three Chiefs and the second the marriage of Seretse Khama and Ruth Williams in London 1948.“
But academic and book critic, Tiro Sebina, was quick to condemn Grant’s reasoning. Sebina argues in his review, “Such reasoning elevates the cult of the personality and tends to lionise elite characters who were as perplexed as everyone else by the material and historical changes that were forming and deforming their communities. Why highlight a visit and a marriage when more devastating events were in process?”
But a further reading into Grant’s assertion reveals that he was only saying, ‘those two subjects (Chiefs visit and marriage) have inevitably attracted the attention of many commentators, academics and otherwise.
This week Arts & Culture sat down with a young Motswana, an internationally acclaimed artist, whose works have arguably validated Grant’s trail of thought.
Donald Molosi a multi-award winning performing artist and writer whose portrayal of Sir Seretse Khama’s life in a play titled Blue, Black And White, earned him raving reviews locally and internationally.
“I tell you, I have never been here,” says Molosi keenly watching the three giant bronzes of Khama III, Bathoen and Sebele I at the Three Dikgosi Monument at Gaborone CBD.
“The last time I was close to here they were still wrapped in plastic,” he says. Molosi, just like the artist that moulded these statues, has created a monumental artpiece that has catapulted Botswana’s founding President among giants of national heritage.
Surprisingly, Molosi too is a product of Botswana’s colonialist education syllabus that does not teach students about their history.
He says: “To find out about Seretse Khama, I had to go to three continents and find bits and pieces of him scattered, which I brought together. It was almost like repatriating bones of an ancestor.”
Responding to Sebina’s argument that posits, “the continued projection of Seretse Khama’s marriage to Ruth Williams as some earth shatteringly important historical event that we are expected to hold in high regard reduces a complex history of a country to an extended family saga,” Molosi says marriage was never the main focus of his work.
“There was more to him than marrying a white woman,” he says.
For Molosi the research process became a journey that transported him deeper into Seretse’s dark world that he ended up “meeting him in his dreams”.
It is a weird supernatural connection that the artist had with his long departed subject.
“I have had lots of dreams about him. It is weird,” he says, but then pauses mid-sentence wondering if the reader will understand this.
He continues: “I don’t know if I even have to say this but I started transcribing the things that Seretse told me in the dreams. I treated them as the same source of material like I gathered from the museums.”
Molosi spent time reading handwritten letters that were exchanged between Seretse and Tshekedi Khama that he ended up adopting Seretse’s handwriting. Molosi says he gathered most of the materials in Yale Museum in the US.
He adds: “It is a pity that a western museum could have so much archiving about this subject than one could gather here.”
He believes this is a reflection of the injustice of colonialism because rich archives of African history are found in the US than in Africa.
He gives an example of the Nigeria-Biafra war, which he says that before author Chimamanda Ngozi could write her Half Of A Yellow Sun she gathered most of the material from Yale.
The story of Blue, Black And White evolved from a 10-minute play that he first staged at the Dialogue One Festival in Massachusetts, US in 2008. Molosi says Botswana’s national colours of blue, black and white as well as the sadness that brought the union of Seretse and Ruth, inspired the play’s title.
The play won him many awards including the Dialogue One Festival Best Actor (2009 and 2011), Sanford Prize for Excellence Theatre, Dilling Yang Prize for Excellence, Lehman Scholar Award from Williams College and got nominated for the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship as a US national nominee (2009).
He brought the play home and staged it at Maitisong where he performed it in front of Khama’s family, his children among them President Ian Khama. He said the family was “pleased and grateful to have someone do the story on their father and family’s story.”
In 2014 Blue, Black And White was performed by a company of Botswana performers in arts festivals in Botswana and Zimbabwe directed by Gao Lemmenyane.
He reveals that he is slated to reprise his role as Sir Seretse Khama Off-Broadway in November 2014 where he will also be honoured for his contributions to Off-Broadway’s United Solo, arguably the largest solo theatre festival.
He will be travelling to Brazil next week where he will stage Blue, Black and White as part of the Botswana Independence celebrations.
Molosi’s other celebrated works include Today It’s Me about the life of Uganda’s music superstar Philly Lutaaya. The play earned him the Robert Potter Playwriting Award in 2012. His 2012 work titled MOTSWANA: Africa, Dream Again earned him a publication deal by Indie Theater.
Molosi’s earlier works which he did whilst a teenager include Fragments (2002) directed by Lemmenyane.
“Fragments was a meditation on children’s rights in Botswana. It was a crystallisation of many of my efforts to popularise children’s rights such as my poetry exhibition titled Can I Live (2002), which augmented the African Charter on the Rights of the Child,” says Molosi.
At only 17-years-old, Fragments earned Molosi a great critical acclaim and saw him being invited to New York City for the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children.
He performed Fragments for world leaders such as former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Nelson Mandela. He was rewarded with a Sir Seretse and Lady Ruth Khama Brilliant Spirit Award by President Khama for his efforts to use art altruistically for the service of the nation.
On the state of the arts in Botswana, Molosi is happy with the progress but feels more effort could be done.
“We are getting somewhere individualistically. And this is not ideal for the growth of the arts. Once enough of us stop being careerist but more collaborative that is when the art will see a positive growth,” says Molosi.
He adds, “It is not good enough for us to have 10 years and still have, ‘Only Motswana in Broadway’”. On the development of performing arts, Molosi says there is a need to take our art to Batswana. He says the trend of having mostly foreign audiences at plays is not sustainable.
“Our people should see themselves in our art. I will be happy if one day I will be able to perform Blue, Black And White in full Setswana somewhere in Kalamare,” says Molosi.
He adds that the other problem with our local art is that artists tend to think of art as something that should please everyone and so they create works that do not provoke thought.
He says this is due to a number of factors including relying on sponsors that control a lot of the narrative and the way artists have been taught.
He says there is need for artists to come together so that they avoid being censored by the sponsors.
He gives an example of how some people had reservations to sponsor Blue, Black And White because they thought the play was a political commentary about the Khama family.
Molosi has also tasted Hollywood. His credits include Green Zone (2007) with Academy-Award winner Matt Damon and Breakfast In Hollywood (2006) with Paul Boocok.
He says he prefers both stage and television.
Writing or acting?
He says, “Acting is my comfort zone”.
Molosi talks affectionately about Chimamanda Ngozi. 'Chimamanda resonates with me because she had, at the same age as I me, and struggle with being African in Africa and being African in the US. A figure like her has not existed before.'
He also speaks highly of Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina and Taiye Selasi. Locally he mentions Zues' work ethic as inspiring. He says Mbongeni Ngema and his Sarafina was such a major inspiration when he did Blue Black and White. Molosi says South Africa's Sibongile Khumalo's fusion of western art into 'Africanness' motivates him and he too aspires to do that.
After spending about five years researching on Seretse, adopting his handwriting, walk, his accent, memorising his speeches, posture, hair cut, and talking to him through dreams, he gets tongue-tied when asked, what Seretse Khama would say about Botswana’s current affairs?
Molosi probably needs another talk with Seretse in his dreams to get the answer before going into his ‘comfort zone’ to respond, Arts & Culture observed.