ON A table at Gramadoelas, empty beer bottles and plastic cups blink in the pale, rain-flecked afternoon light, like the detritus of a raucous drinking session the previous night. Except that the legendary restaurant in Johannesburg’s Market Theatre precinct is sadly no more — these days, it serves as a rehearsal space. And the drained quarts are just props for the 30th anniversary production of the musical Sophiatown, which opens this week at the Market Theatre to mark the venue’s 40th year.Today, the romance of the golden Sophiatown era of the 1950s glows undimmed: millennials are fascinated by the renaissance of art, literature, jazz, mbaqanga and intellectual debate that flowered among the mixed residents of the district, which was one of Johannesburg’s last freehold residential suburbs and was cocking a snook at the freshly minted segregation laws.Yes, Kofifi (Sophiatown) was the muse of writers and Drum magazine journalists such as Can Themba, Bloke Modisane, Es’kia Mphahlele,...
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