How to Adapt Sarafina for Theatre Stage

How to Adapt Sarafina for Theatre Stage

It is normal to turn great plays into movies, but things gone opposite is: plays adapted from movies are no longer strange.  Some people claim that the theatre is facing intellectual bankruptcy (Screen-to-Stage Adaptation). With more successful movies than plays, borrowing from the screen for the stage can fairly be justified. Sarafina is one African movie that can undoubtedly make a great musical, and in fact, it was originally written for the stage.  The process of adaptation has to be fairly challenging since it has been produced as a movie. Compared to Master Harold and the Boys, Sarafina is far more complex. The play, Master Harold and the Boys, revolves around only three characters and the set is considerably minimal.

Sarafina’s plot dwells around anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa endured by a group of especially bold students in Soweto. It is set in the 1976 state of Emergency, with rioting students being massacred by government troops. Leleti Khumalo acts as Sarafina, a young ambitious student whose opposition to Apartheid is so vehement that she is willing to do anything to effect change (Ebert). Her zealous schoolteacher, Mary Masumbuka, a role taken by Whoopi Golberg, inspires her. South African authorities soon take Masumbuka into custody and the protests that follows has Sarafina’s boyfriend slaughtered. The intensity of the riots heightens and Sarafina has to choose either peace or to rise against the government. Sarafina’s choice gets her imprisoned, tortured and nearly killed. In the end, she clearly knows the price of equality and the cost paid by her icon Nelson Mandela in fighting for a free South Africa. 

Figure 1 Sarafina! 1992 (c)Buena Vista Pictures

Staging such a movie on stage would require knowing what to change. The final musical should not appear like acting for the screen while on the stage. It is usually good to get a new creative team to avoid drifting back to what seems to a complete replica of the movie (Rogers). The songs can be changed or remixed while adding completely new tracks but retaining the very signature soundtrack like Freedom is Coming Tomorrow. Adding new songs makes audience feel a distinctive transition from screen to stage. The drama has to be hyped. Acting for the screen is largely different from the screen, which is more of a real life. Adapting Sarafina for the stage requires rewriting the dialogues, making them more bold and poetic while retaining the storyline.

The adaptation is quite easy because the movie is already in dialogue and actions. What makes it easier is that Mbongeni Ngema’s work, Sarafina, is more of a musical than the traditional feature film. Mbongeni packs a lot of lively action and songs making the work an undisputable candidate for screen-to-stage adaptation. The commitment the students have for their cause and how they fervently fight for what they believe in is evidently inspirational (Budd 107) making the movie just an inch aside the stage. This kind of work requires a rich backstage organization, showing the rustic scenes of Soweto Slums. The walls would need inspirational graffiti on walls of shanties. Lighting requires a balanced mixture of brilliance and dullness, mixing colors in the riot scenes while lowering intensity in dull moments like when Sarafina visits her mother (Miriam Makeba).

Figure 2 Sarafina! Whoopi Goldberg, Leleti Khumalo, 1992 (c)Buena Vista Pictures

Transitioning the scenes call for mastering the world of play. Stressing the dialogues and packing them with more active gestures than the screen actions brings out the play a lot more captivating. Adaptation needs creating new moments to make the audience feel that they are in a performing theatre rather that a movie hall.  A big percentage of screen-to-stage adaptations fail due to lack of creativity to enhance this distinction (Phillips). The play world would require masks and the costumes would have to be more visual, to add life to the show. Sarafina brings light that racism is never limited language culture or continents. The evil spans the entire globe testing faiths, beliefs and creeds alike. This movie evokes a startling and thought provoking question: what follows when one voice rebels against many and then is supported by more and more voices? Mbongeni’s work inspires people to stand for what is true in spite of the numbers. 

Works Cited

Budd, David. Culture Meets Culture in the Movies: An Analysis East, West, North and South, with Filmography. Jefferson, North Carolina and London: McFarland & Company Inc, 1950. Print

Ebert, Roger. Sarafina! http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/sarafina-1992 . September 25, 1992 Web. 18 May 2016

Ngema, Mbongeni. Sarafina!. 1992. Photograph. Buena Vista Pictures

Phillips, Michael. Adapting movies for the stage is no easy trick. Chicago Tribune. Chicago Tribune, October 31, 2010. Web. 18 May 2016

Rogers, Mac. From Screen to Stage How to turn a movie into a musical. Slate, May 23 2006.Slate.Web. 18 May 2016 

Sarafina!, Whoopi Goldberg, Leleti Khumalo, 1992. Photograph. Buena Vista Pictures

Screen-to-Stage Adaptation. n.d. TV Trope. Web. 18 May 18, 2016