Father’s Day came early this year for David Kramer when the performers who call him “Dad” mounted a tribute to him.
A Musical Tribute Celebrating David Kramer was presented for one evening only at the Artscape Theatre in Cape Town on April 12.
“I always wanted to perform his music and showcase it while he was sitting in a theatre and could hear beautiful versions of his songs and the wonderful singers,” says producer Alistair Izobell. “David is by far one of the most defiant people when it comes to public acknowledgment.”
Along with selections from Kramer’s musicals, the production featured an act based on his 1980s adverts for the Volkswagen kombi, in which he rode his bicycle through the Karoo with his trademark red velskoene and guitar.
To get Kramer’s blessing for the tribute, Izobell presented the lessons he had learnt from his day job. “Being a mortician and an embalmer, I know that the footprint of life comes to an end,” he says. He told Kramer: “I want to acknowledge your contribution to my life, certainly my creative life, but you as a human being in my life and the privilege that I’ve had to do that.”
Kramer sat in the centre of the main seating area during the tribute, just one among the audience, until the performers began saluting him during the curtain call. Then he stood up, wearing his trademark porkpie hat, and took a modest bow.
Izobell was nine years old when his parents brought him to Cape Town’s Baxter Theatre to audition before Kramer and his creative partner, the late Taliep Petersen. Kramer told him: “You sing like an angel,” and gave him the part of news vendor Broertjie in the musical District Six. At the time, Izobell and his family had never seen the inside of a theatre. Kramer provided tickets so that he, his parents and his aunt could see the musical in which Izobell would feature.
[Kramer and Petersen] made us understand that we belong, that our story is important, that we are important
— Alistair Izobell
There were other boys of about the same age in the production: “Loukmaan Adams and Jody Abrahams [both now veteran entertainers], among others,” Izobell says. “And 40 years later, we are still in [Kramer’s] life, as he is prominent in ours. There’s never been a time in our careers that we didn’t confer or run things by him,” he says. “He’s central in all our creative decisions.”
To this day, Izobell and his colleagues call Kramer “Dad”.
The sold-out event, directed by Basil Appollis, featured entertainment industry stars such as Emo Adams, Loukmaan Adams, Amanda Strydom, Zolani Mahola, Rushney Ferguson and Nur Abrahams, among others — and Izobell himself. They were accompanied by the traditional Khoi and San ceremonial performers, the Riel Dancers of Betjiesfontein, the South African Youth Choir and a 13-piece band, directed by Izobell with Shaun de Vries on bass.
For Izobell and his fellow performers, the magic of this music is not just in the rhythm or the melody, but, most importantly, in the message for South Africa’s previously marginalised communities.
“[Kramer and Petersen] made us understand that we belong, that our story is important, that we are important,” Izobell says. “It was so entrenched in us that the work we were embarking on for the rest of our lives was going to be about inclusivity. They instilled that into our minds and souls all the time, emphasising how important our footprint and our responsibility as artists are.”
He adds: “It wasn’t just [about] being able to sing, dance and act. It’s about a cultural identity that comes with the sound. The essence of their teaching to us was this: if you’re writing something, it’s got to mean something to somebody.”
Izobell describes Kramer’s lyrics as profound. “He doesn’t sing or write anything unless he has something important to say.
“Here was a white Jewish man from Worcester, Afrikaans speaking, and Petersen, a Muslim from the Cape Flats, who made us understand that life is a journey and not a destination. And our work is hugely important, because a society without art is no society. So that has been our template for the past 40 years: to open the doors for others,” Izobell says.
For actor Ferguson, part of the beauty of Kramer’s music is how he presents the authentic details of his characters’ lives. “He does extensive amounts of research before he puts something on stage,” she says. “He wouldn’t touch a topic if he had not researched it thoroughly, because he wouldn’t want to tell the incorrect story or be seen as appropriating something.”
She acknowledges that some people might feel uncomfortable about “this white man telling brown people’s stories”.
But, she says, “I don’t find that controversial at all, because sometimes we don’t have the ways and means, the platform, the funding to be able to tell our own stories … He creates that platform.”
Her respect for Kramer’s high standards runs deep in her own professional life. He was “the first person to give me a job in the theatre world in South Africa”, says Ferguson. Under Kramer’s direction, she earned Fleur du Cap theatre award nominations for her performances in three of his musicals: Langarm, Danger in the Dark and Ver In Die Wêreld Kittie.
Like Izobell, Ferguson is living the dream that was born when she was about nine years old. Her teenage uncle taped an M-Net broadcast of the Kramer-Petersen hit musical Kat and the Kings with the original cast. “I still have it to this day, this old VHS tape with the show on it,” she says. “I would watch that every single day, to the point where I knew the dialogue. I knew the blocking. I knew the choreography. I knew the costume changes ... And I’m like, oh, one day I want to work with these people because they seem so awesome.”
After matric she studied dance, drama and musical theatre at the Waterfront Theatre School in Cape Town. After graduation she performed in the UAE. When she moved back to South Africa, she says, she had to start from scratch. “Everybody who’d stayed behind had a foundation [in theatre].”
She attended a call for auditions for the return season of District Six Kanala. She was taken on as a swing — a performer who is on standby for every other person on stage. This meant learning every part, every song and every dance number. After that run, she performed in Kramer’s Afrikaans hip-hop musical Amper Famous with the company at the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees in Oudtshoorn.
“And then I got my first lead,” Ferguson says. “David gave me a shot ... Now it’s about 10 years that I’ve been working with him. I see him as some sort of a theatre dad, a mentor.”
It’s our responsibility to do that too. And I’m up for that. For giving a voice to those who can’t and couldn’t
— Carmen Maarman
Carmen Maarman’s first theatre gig was as an usher at the Baxter Theatre. “I got to watch every show of David’s,” she says. “I made sure I was working at the door. Seeing him constantly, just making him know that I’m here, I’m here.”
After studying at CityVarsity multimedia school and performing with a children’s theatre group, she auditioned before Kramer and Petersen for District Six.
“I was so nervous!” she says. But they knew how to put her at ease. As she sang, she says, “Taliep picks up his guitar and plays and sings with me”. When Kramer asked if she could dance, she was comfortable enough to respond: “‘I’m coloured!’ And he’s like, ‘OK, point taken.’ But they laughed.”
Maarman first played the part of The Sexy Girl and then that of Ghaliema in District Six. The production ran at the Baxter for nine months in 2002. “That was a very long time,” she says. “I had a front-row seat to the best classroom.” She adds: “It’s such a beautiful thing to be part of, and to tell stories, of course.”
Years later, when Maarman was working in television, Kramer phoned her. “And he said: ‘Carmen, I just want to congratulate you.’” she says. He thanked her for always being prepared, for showing up as much as an hour ahead of scheduled rehearsals. “And I said: ‘Well, you guys prepared me for the next level in my life.’ And I thanked him. Working with him and Taliep gave me so much more than I could ever learn from sitting in a classroom,” she says.
Today, like her colleagues in the tribute, Maarman carries the passion Kramer and Petersen passed on to her. “I love the fact that they told our stories,” she says. “And in a musical way, which is great. And very factual. I love that they were ‘to the T’ with it. Perfectionists. They wanted to do it the right way.
“It’s our responsibility to do that too. And I’m up for that. For giving a voice to those who can’t and couldn’t. It’s so important that we do that.”
The commitment of his performers shows the depth of Kramer’s cultural footprint in the South African landscape.
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