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Barking up another tree...
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March 10, 2009
By Kgomotso Moncho
Within a minute of talking to Robert Whitehead, it is impossible not to crack up. His dry sense of humour is ultra sharp.
He's easy-going, so comfortable in his own skin and nothing like the "no nonsense" Barker Haines he portrays in Isidingo.
He returns to the stage with Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be alongside Fiona Ramsay.
It opens at the Joburg Theatre this week. It's been four years since his last stage performance in Irene Stephanou's Acropolis Café at the Market Theatre.
Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be is set in London's Soho in the late '50s and looks at the underworld of crooks, whores and bent policemen.
The setting takes place in a backstreet club owned and run by Whitehead's character, Fred Cochran.
"I play a major baddie again and although villains share the same thing, this one is very different. He's funny and he sings. The appeal for me about Fings is that it's a play with music. I can sell a song in a character, but I'm not a musical performer," he says.
A sneak preview arranged for the press demonstrates the show's entertainment factor and all the rowdiness of the era it represents.
"If one had to translate it to South Africa one would have to think of the Tsotsi taal, the illegal shebeens and the suppressed township life of Sophiatown. It's equivalent to London's gangland. It's rowdy. So if any of the audience's phone rings during the show, a cast member will come off stage and thieve it off them."
The next couple of months will be taxing on Whitehead as he juggles his television and stage commitments: "You don't realise how much you need theatre until you're on stage.
TV can be emotionally demanding, but physically it doesn't do much for one.
"It's only when you get to stage that you realise how unfit you are. Theatre re-stimulates you because you can get stale. Producers know this and they encourage actors to get back to stage once in a while. It's going to be tough when Fings opens because I will be going back to shoot Isidingo in the day and doing theatre at night."
Still on Isidingo, it's clear Whitehead loves Barker and is excited at any opportunity to improve him as he mentions that the soapie will go through an interesting shift in the next few months.
But he's as passionate about theatre because that's his base.
He's done classics like Merchant of Venice, cabaret shows like Ain't We Got Fun, and directed pieces like M Butterfly and The Native Who Caused All The Trouble, starring John Kani.
Making observations about theatre then and now, he says: "We have lost a huge amount of traditional theatre-going audience, but we have gained more in other areas.
"Real theatre now is community theatre. People also want big musicals because they're universal and fill up the auditoriums.
"You can't kill yourself by trying to make theatre for everybody. It's not for everyone. I got to know this when I did the play, How I Learned to Drive.
A hard truth from someone who knows.
Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be opens at the Fringe at the Jo'burg Theatre on Sunday. Booking at Computicket.
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