Andrew Buckland walks to the centre of a bare, green-lit stage, and faces the audience, who quieten at his presence. Wearing brown cargo shorts and a plain black T-shirt Buckland begins to talk meekly, frankly, and excitedly, introducing the subject matter – the way my grandfather did when he told stories of Sinbad and the Seven Sailors on Sunday mornings. “The Libanasidus Vittatus” he begins, jokingly overcomplicating the scientific term… “otherwise known as ‘The Parktown prawn’ is a coastal creature. When its natural habitat of sandstone was transported to be used as building materials for mansions in Parktown, it became a household staple of Johannesburg suburbia”. At this, an audience member, presumably a proud Joburger, exclaims in excitement, “True! That’s true!”. Buckland continues, entertained by his own story: “People are terrified of them!”. In an act of anticipation, the stage goes black...

“The Ugly Noo Noo” has been performed by Buckland sporadically since 1988, written very specifically for the South African context of the 1980s. The Baxter’s Flipside Theatre is hosting the play until the 10th of August and promises a successful run due to Buckland’s notorious reputation. The play is directed by Janet Buckland, Andrew’s spouse of 49 years who is equally celebrated in the South African theatre world. Echoes of nostalgia ripple through the audience, who whisper: “I remember watching this 20 years ago!”. Since its first performance, little about the play has changed. Besides a cut from the introduction, an added Covid reference, and the line about “identifying as human”, the body of the work remains the same. Except that when Buckland first performed the piece, he was 34 and now at 70, he has to be smarter about the intensely physical performance.

Buckland stoops low and elicits a machine-like purr from his throat. He methodically pushes his arms forward, leaning in as he growled. Ahh! The character is mowing a lawn, transformed into a suburban dad going about his Sunday afternoon chores. “Zzzzzzt”, he grumbled. “Zzzzzzzt”. The lawnmower has hit something, a rut in the lawn. He looks up at the audience, bewildered. “What have I hit?” His expression says. He tries again. “Zzzzzzzt”. He investigates. His hand sinks into the ground, all the way up to his wrist. “Uuuugh!”. Buckland recoils in disgust. The substance is smooth, almost like flesh, he says. But his hand has taken a liking to the hole, creeping toward it on its own accord: he was getting pulled in unwillingly. His arm moved like it had a mind of its own, desperately fighting the rest of his body. A torso pulled while an arm pushed, and Buckland was getting dragged down by some force. Now, a foot cheekily joined an arm in the rush underground. Buckland was writhing away, his pesky limbs sucking him magnetically to the hole in the ground. Until…yank! The audience’s perspective is shifted from the garden to a glass bottle buried underneath the grass. And yet there is nothing on stage but mime and imagination.

Buckland has shifted as a performer since the 80’s: “When I first played it, I was 34 and burst in with energy, trying to make a name for myself. I was pounding it out and sweating within the first 15 seconds.” He has gotten smarter with his use of movement, using less energy and stopping to allow the character to speak. The fight between his limbs and torso used to be three times as long. Now, his bones don’t react the same way. He’s had a hip replacement. So, he needed to find precise physicality. He can show emotion but thinks that what’s most important is what happens in the imagination of the audience so that they see their own version of what’s happening onstage. It was Professor Gary Gordon who introduced physicality to Buckland’s performances at Rhodes University in the 70s/80s. Gordon saw that physicality like ballet, mime and clowning was a performance aspect that was being ignored. The audience responds to movement; it has the power to evoke even a physical response. During his early days at the Market Theatre, Buckland observed his colleague, a Polish drummer, practising 8 hours a day.  “I thought ‘Jeez, he’s noisy my chick’. But to be professional you have to spend 8 hours a day practicing. How can you call yourself an artist if you don’t practice? He shamed me. It was a seminal moment.” 

Buckland trained 8 hours a day from then on. He could construct classes for himself in voice and agility, and that became a pattern that he started to take responsibility for himself as an artist/actor. A couple of months later when had no work the Market Theatre offered him a 20-minute slot to perform. That day by chance, his son had an insect show and tell at school, they had to “race the “Noo Noo’s” for class. Buckland continued his training regularly, along with an hour or so of free writing of half a page of dialogue every day. On a day-to-day basis, it was cyclical: he would play with the characters and the transitions of the characters and then that evening he would write text, play that text and expand. The one fed the other. The Parkview Prawn had a huge mythology. Its appearance is so disgusting that in the 1960s students at the University of Witwatersrand spread a rumour that the intimidating insects were the result of genetic engineering gone wrong. “When Janet saw those things, the roof would lift off,” Buckland explains. “I played calm but was terrified. It said to me that this is just like what was happening in the country since the late 1800s.”

The ANC had been going to the British Government for an open conversation about South African politics since the beginning of the 20th century and was met with violence. Buckland’s posh and proper Parktown Prawn explains that he is a representative of the CCC, the “Communalists” who are fighting for equality amongst all creatures, against the domination of one species.  The poor prawn, who is quite an amiable fellow, undergoes multiple attempted murders: he is stepped on, squashed by the Yellow Pages, sprayed with the toxic Doom, and eventually sliced with a large kitchen knife. The insect is met with fear, like the British Government’s attitude toward the ANC. “Human beings and insects respond to fear through violence, that is a human trait throughout the world”. Power and fear are negotiated in a delicate balance.  And yet, when prodded, Buckland refuses to disclose who each character represents. “It’s a world of its own. I don’t want to load anything. The characters are unique individuals who have resonances with other people. If anything, they are parts of me”. If this intrigues you be sure to book tickets to catch “The Ugly Noo Noo” at the Baxter’s Flipside Theatre from today till the 10th of August.

Buckland, of course, enacts both roles, jumping between the prim and proper insect, and the terrified suburban South African. He became each character through intense physicality and detailed mime. The challenge of a one-man show is to create distinct characters who don’t bleed into each other. Buckland elaborates: “Make sure the audience jumps their perspective in an instant. The solo mime, Marcel Marceau, does this. You see it in the position of the feet. Straightaway you’ve got the position changed. The change is physical, from how the spine sits to the connection to the floor. If I can make that sharp enough the audience is there.” It’s about making an instant as economical as possible. Buckland worked for hours with the music of Bobby McFerrin, who would jump in styles and ranges – he would mime to that music, portraying musical differences in movement.

Buckland explains that by the time “The Ugly Noo Noo” was being performed, the Security Branch of the Apartheid Government didn’t bother with artists. He played to audiences at the Market Theatre, a liberal, left-wing grouping. “We could say what we liked,” Andrew says. “It was a specific kind of audience. This kind of comedy didn’t protest directly at a white audience”. This play was never banned, its comedy acted as a barrier to the Apartheid state’s understanding of protest theatre. “I got shut out at rallies and end conscription campaigns when my performances were blatantly political. With this not so much. Some people have walked out because they may find it offensive”. “The Ugly Noo Noo” uses comedy and satire to make people look at problems long enough to laugh. “People have said I changed the way they see insects”, he jokes, “and also the way they see life”.