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READ A QUESTION AND ANSWER WITH MARK DORNFORD-MAY
INTERVIEW: MARK DORNFORD-MAY - SON OF MAN
By Daniel Dercksen
When he was five-years-old Mark Dornford-May made headlines in his local newspaper in England when he played Joseph in a Nativity play and slapped an actress who played Mary across the face when she forgot her lines.
Today Dornford-May is hitting international headlines with his controversial South African film Son Of Man, a new and adventurous interpretation of the Gospels re-told as a tale of corruption and redemption in contemporary Africa and filmed in the township of Khayelitsha and on the Eastern Cape of South Africa.
"I was a director coming out at the age of five!" he laughs, having now come full circle with Son of Man.
Dornford-May has been a theatre and opera director for over twenty-five years and has worked in South Africa for the last seven years creating the Lyric Theatre company Dimpho Di Kopane and is now Director of Portobello Productions in South Africa.
He was responsible for directing all their stage productions, including the hugely successful staging of Carmen and Yiimimangaliso The Mysteries.
"I started doing theatre from a very early age. Nothing else has ever held my attention as theatre has," he says, recalling memories of his father who was involved in drama and education for Cheshire.
"I grew up with a parent who was passionate about the uses of drama as a way of helping people to work together socially. And certainly, that influenced me. From the age of three I was sitting in rehearsal rooms."
U-Carmen eKhayelitsha was Dornford-May's first feature film which earned him the Golden Bear for Best Film in Berlin in 2005, received the award for Best Feature at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles, and was awarded a Golden Thumb by America's Pulitzer Prize winning film critic Roger Ebert.
His second film Son of Man received the founders prize at the Traverse City Film Festival presented by Michael Moore who described the film 'as one of the most beautiful and subversive films of the decade'.
Dornford-May believes that Son Of Man had such a powerful impact at Festival screenings and during its release in London because "it portrays Christ as a social and political radical as well as a spiritual figure. I think that's attracted a lot of interest and, obviously, because Carmen had worked well, people are interested to see what I was going to do next."
As a purist/ conservative I was at first sceptical when Carmen E'Khayalisha was announced, but after watching The Magic Flute and Christmas Carol, and especially Son Of Man, my views and opinion have been drastically transformed.
Is it Dornford-May's aim to allow purists to see the world differently?
"That is part of my aim," he says. "I think working in South Africa and working with young South African performers it's important to tell the story through a South African prism. I think there will be no point in telling the story in a way which everyone knows. The point of storytelling is that you have to find ways of being clever enough to make people forget that they've heard the story before."
Dornford-May was inspired to "tell the story of Christ, and tell it in a way which I hoped other people would understand,"
Vaguely based on his production 'The Mysteries' (a 12th Century set of plays about stories from the Bible), Son of Man is an important film in his career that challenged him in many ways.
From the outset Dornford-May and Giulio Biccari, the director of photography, decided to shoot the film "in a very low-key way that we weren't going to use lots of special effects."
"We tried to shoot it as if we were observing the events that were happening and it was like a documentary crew. We tried to get a scene in as few shots as possible, which gives it a an edginess I think, and a sense of reality."
Son of Man brilliantly depicts how different generations interpret the story: there's verbal interpretation from the scriptures, a contemporary generation interprets the story through music and dance; and the younger generation tells the story through graffiti art.
"I tried to capture all that," he says. "Looking at the history of the struggle in South Africa, often political points or things are made through graffiti because it was a way of ensuring a large number of people got hold of a simple message. That, for us, became a way of thinking that if Christ was in Africa now; his disciples would probably use that as a method of getting the story across."
"What we tried to do was find a way of looking at the absolute basics of the gospels and try to base the story on that, rather than all the theory that had been put around it."
Music plays an important role in Son Of Man and beautifully underscores the emotional journey of the characters.
"I was very lucky working with Charles Hazlewood and Pauline Malefane, both extraordinary musicians - Charles from a classical European background, and Pauline is a fantastic exponent of traditional South African song," he says.
In the film Pauline in the film plays Mary and Dornford-May ensured that her voice dominated the soundtrack
"We did that on purpose because one of the things that struck me in the gospels is that when Mary is told about the fact that she is going to bring forth the Son of God, she has a song of praise, so I used that as a launching pad for actually hearing Mary's voice, even if it is subliminal, throughout the whole film.
Dornford-May's visual language and interpretation in Son of Man are inspiring, particularly the images of the Angel boys and the staging of the crucifixion.
"For me, when you are reading the Gospels, the angels are absolutely quite terrifying - these all powerful figures. Gabriel is a really frightening figure," he says.
"What I thought was, instead of trying to make him large and frightening, we could make him like a child, or like a young boy. But, give him this awesome power and I hope that people feel slightly unsettled because normally a child doesn't wield enormous power."
Dornford-May has a wonderful sensibility of balancing contemporary Western Values with African traditions and believes they are not that different.
"The base values of South African culture and the best of European culture are exactly the same. They're together. There may be surface differences, but underneath the same philosophies exist."
African mythology, storytelling and rhythm (music) have become an integral part of Dornford-May as a creator and director.
An important influence in his life was when he first came to South Africa eight years ago to do a show.
"I suppose it's just a process of absorption in a way. I'm fascinated by South African culture. I spend a lot of time in the townships. I am married to Pauline Malefane, a South African woman. That storytelling thing which may at first appear alien, for me seems actually very normal and a simple way of working."
Dornford-May's initial 9-week visit to South Africa has changed to a permanent stay of eight years.
"I remember hearing a South African choir singing for the first time. That was the visceral, physical impact it had on me. I just thought that this is where I want to be. Where I want to stay. Where I want to work. That hasn't changed."
He has now settled down in Cape Town with Pauline whom he met when he was doing the stage production of Carmen.
"I've got my family here. This is where I live now. I have to remind myself that I'm not South African and that I am British."
"I spend time with my family. I've got a son and a daughter, both at school, and its great being just with them because your understanding of the world and life changes completely because it's not pre-occupied with who the world thinks you are. It's just who you are, and you're their dad."
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Copyright © 2008 The Writing Studio All rights reserved
Published with permission in The Good Weekend (Weekend Argus) June 14, 2008/ The Sunday Tribune, June 21, 2008
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