James Ngcobo’s second act - The actor and director who saved The Market during the pandemic is enthusiastic about his new job as head of Joburg City Theatres
‘It’s about the loyal patrons who come to the theatre. They are the biggest shareholder in this scenario’
The Safta-winning actor from Netflix’s Queen Sono and SABC3’s Hard Copy has been tasked with developing and implementing an artistic vision for Joburg City Theatres’s 10 spaces at Joburg Theatre, Roodepoort Theatre, Soweto Theatre and Jabulani Amphitheatre. “It’s about what we do as the hands of time move. How can we synchronise our lives with the beat of time? What is our output as time moves on? Growing old is a destination that will definitely happen. But when Vladimir says ‘we have time to grow old’, to me it speaks to how there is so much to do.
Similarly, when the country and the world came to a standstill at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, he kept his momentum. By the end of that year, the Market Theatre became one of the first theatres to open during the pandemic. Then there was actor Nicholas Ellenbogen, who was artistic director at the Loft Theatre Company in Durban and writer and activist Es’kia Mphahlele, who offered the young writer a masterclass in “writing from a place of experience” when he lunched with him at a Market Theatre restaurant a year before he died. “He left an indelible mark in my heart,” says Ngcobo.
Although Ngcobo mentions in a another interview “he did not have the privilege to go to university”, it is the learning experiences he’s gathered among industry peers and teachers, along with his gusto, commitment to achieving and sense of innovation and leadership, that contributed to his appointment as Joburg City Theatres’s artistic director.
Ngcobo, who becomes emotional at the mention of youth and mentorship, has his own set of mentees to whom he is dear. Rorisang Motuba, an actress, writer and playwright who was cast by Ngcobo in the Market Theatre’s 2014 adaption of The Colored Museum, and was commissioned by him for Diaparo Tsa Mama, staged at the theatre earlier this year, recalls a moment with James that highlighted his character.
With his unrelenting approach to life, one would be mistaken to assume that Ngcobo receives his favourite quote from Godot with the same grinding tone it conveys. He waxes lyrical about its meaning to him. “One of the most challenging times I’ve had as an artistic director was when everything was closing down during the pandemic,” says Ngcobo, “Everything was so uncertain, but at the same time, I just knew in my heart that we couldn’t just do the easy thing and close the theatre. We had to do something else.”
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