Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Tin Bucket Drum: Questions with Neil Coppen
- Selection of images from various performances
- Tin Bucket Drum: the play script
- Note on staging
- Scene 1 A celebration
- Scene 2 The journey
- Scene 3 Mkhulu's welcome
- Scene 4 A child is born
- Scene 5 Awakening
- Scene 6 Sermon
- Scene 7 Silent confinement
- Scene 8 Mkhulu's story
- Scene 9 Integration
- Scene 10 Problem child
- Scene 11 Legacy
- Scene 12 Rehabilitation
- Scene 13 Community service
- Scene 14 Revolution
- Scene 15 Lullaby
Scene 1 - A celebration
from Tin Bucket Drum: the play script
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 April 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Tin Bucket Drum: Questions with Neil Coppen
- Selection of images from various performances
- Tin Bucket Drum: the play script
- Note on staging
- Scene 1 A celebration
- Scene 2 The journey
- Scene 3 Mkhulu's welcome
- Scene 4 A child is born
- Scene 5 Awakening
- Scene 6 Sermon
- Scene 7 Silent confinement
- Scene 8 Mkhulu's story
- Scene 9 Integration
- Scene 10 Problem child
- Scene 11 Legacy
- Scene 12 Rehabilitation
- Scene 13 Community service
- Scene 14 Revolution
- Scene 15 Lullaby
Summary
The NARRATOR takes her position centre stage. She is dressed in tattered white garments, her face painted with white clay. A red sash is tied around her waist.
Eerie music plays. Drumming begins and builds. The scent of Impepho (traditional incense) fills the theatre. A rusted metal baobab tree cut out stands at the centre of the table and the low lighting angle casts imposing shadows of the tree upon the back screen.
NARRATOR: Once a year, on the day of her passing, we gather beneath the tree.
‘Is it time?’ the little ones ask, clutching their tin buckets in one hand, tugging their mothers’ skirts with the other.
‘Nearly time,’ respond their parents.
‘See the heavens heavy with the first rains.
Quickly, hang your bucket, it's good luck to be the first one.’
The elders lift the children up to the great branches of the baobab ‘til it's full, bending beneath the weight of its tin bucket decorations.
Then wait … and wait.
Palms ready, feet poised.
The crowd whispering.
Anxious with anticipation.
Djembe percussion begins and builds and builds.
NARRATOR: She is coming … she is coming.
She is drumming, she is drumming.
‘Is it time?’
‘Nearly time.’
‘Is it time?’
‘Nearly time.’
Time … for the celebration!!
Drumming climaxes, then diminishes.
NARRATOR: She is coming.
She is coming.
She is drumming.
She is drumming.
Listen down the street.
She is dancing … She is dancing.
Hear the music in her heart.
Hear the music in her feet.
Bringing, she is bringing
the rain, she is bringing.
Listen in the wind.
Hear her singing.
She is singing.
Is it time?
Nearly time.
Is it time?
Nearly time … nearly time … nearly time …
The NARRATOR shrinks into darkness. PERCUSSION culminates and fades.
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- Information
- Tin Bucket Drum , pp. 5 - 6Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2016