The National Arts Festival’s theatre
programme is “a laboratory of work that re-imagines history, exhumes ghosts and
questions our future in a way that unsettles and inspires”, according to
Executive Producer, Ashraf Johaardien.
Spearheading this vision is 2017 Standard
Bank Young Artist for Theatre, Monageng ‘Vice’ Motshabi, whose work Ankobia unfolds in the future land of
Pelodikgadile. In that land it is forbidden to remember a time before the new
state, and the ‘joy machine’ keeps people grinning with pleasure and utterly
obedient. Co-written by Motshabi and Omphile Molusi, the play touches on
unresolved issues and the silencing of protest - the machine that is state and
the traps that we fall into when power is unchecked. Motshabi says all his work
“draws on the essence of the continent”. The play, which derives its name from
Ghanaian word ankobia (meaning ‘go back and get it’), features Momo Matsunyane,
Katlego Letsholonyana and Billy Langa. Ankobia
will be performed in Grahamstown on July 7, 8 and 9.
Nadia Davids digs up history in her play What Remains – a fusion of text, dance
and movement about the unexpected uncovering of a slave burial ground in Cape
Town. Based on an actual event, the archaeological dig leads to a reckoning of
untold histories for the citizens, archaeologists and property developers
involved. And so the layers of history and memory emerge. Davids’ work has
previously explored forced removal and memory and this one is no different. Of
Cape Town, David’s says, “It’s an uncanny place, the past and the present are
always entangled, the landscape seems to move constantly between the invitation
to remember and the demand to forget and that remembering and forgetting has
always been racially coded.” She says, “It’s the sort of place that invites
multiple tellings precisely because its inhabitants experience the city so
differently.” Jay Pather directs, choreographs and sets the sceneography of the
piece with performers Denise Newman, Faniswa Yisa and Shaun Oelf bringing the
story to life on June 29 and 30 and July 1.
After a 17 year break from working
together, performer Rehane Abrahams and Mothertongue co-founder and director,
Sara Matchett are bringing their individual work into unison for a study on the
body politic in Womb Of Fire. The
piece uses a mythical, non-Western framework to examine the performing female
body as a site of disruption. An all-woman theatre collective, the Mothertongue
Project has drawn on their experience of helping countless women tell their
stories and become empowered within their bodies and communities. Audiences can
catch this production on July 4, 5 and 6.
In a time where women’s safety and identity
remain squarely on the South African agenda, another piece that interrogates the
representation of women in contemporary society is Zimkitha Kumbaca’s Confessions Of A Blacklisted Woman: She
Bellows. First written by her in 2011, Kumbaca now directs the piece at
this year’s National Arts Festival, close to her original home of King Williams
Town in the Eastern Cape. A departure from her best-known role as Nontle Sanqu,
in the e.tv drama series Matatiele,
this work has been presented to critical acclaim at the South African State
Theatre, Pop Art Theatre, the Windybrow Theatre, the Joburg Theatre and, most
recently, at the Soweto Theatre. Festival audiences can see it on July 4, 5 and
6.
The deeply personal and complex
relationships women have with their families and their selves are excavated in
Jennie Reznek’s (Magnet Theatre) one-woman show, I Turned Away And She Was Gone. Directed by Mark Fleishman, the
show poetically explores the passage and cycles of life of three generations of
women – mother, daughter, grandmother - and the relationship we all have with
our past, present and future selves. Nominated for four Fleur du Cap and two
Naledi awards, the show will be performed on July 7 and 8.
Love and family cross boundaries and
challenge gender stereoytpes in the acclaimed multi-lingual NewFoundLand (Buite Land) by Neil
Coppen. An exploration of the deepest threads that invisibly exist between
religion and science, medicine and faith, memory and forgetting, Kopano
Maroga’s performance at the recent KKNK won him a Best Supporting Actor Kanna
Award and the play took home the Best Debut Production award. The cast includes
Jacques Bessenger, Kopano Maroga, Elize Cawood and Ntombi Gasa among others,
who will perform the piece on July 7, 8 and 9
Family themes continue through Lara Bye’s
formidable treatment of the early 90’s book The
Smell of Apples by Mark Behr. Die
Reuk Van Appels retells the riveting tale of a boy’s end of innocence -
both personally and in the context of country. Gideon Lombard’s Kanna
Award-winning performance (Best Actor 2017) is not to be missed in this
production by The South African State Theatre and Theatrerocket. Catch it on July
2, 3, 4, 5 and 8
Bringing international issues into line
with our own, The Crows Plucked At Your
Sinews is a one-woman show from the UK with Aisha Mohammed, featuring live music
from Abdulkader Saadoun. Directed by Hassan Mahamadille, the story unfolds
through the unearthing of real events in history, both recent and long gone, in
a piece that explores integration and tolerance through an evocative narrative.
The production will show in Grahamstown from July 5 to 8.
The National Arts Festival and Drama for
Life will present four new South African works at the Festival. Insta-Grammar! is a heart-wrenching
story about speaking and keeping love in the whirlwind Instagram and SnapChat
era. Kasi Stories: Stories Not Often Told
examines the failure of the father figure in South Africa through the tensions
of a friendship across economic divides.
Maimane! a coming of age story, set against the backdrop of a contemporary
South Africa, brings together a diverse group of young people who summon the
courage to face extraordinary hardships against all odds. Space Rocks, written by Tamara Schulz and directed by Craig Morris
is aimed at young audiences (4-8 years old). All the Drama for Life shows run
between July 3 and 8.
A
FIRST FOR THE FESTIVAL
A real treat for theatre lovers will be a
live link up to the National Theatre in the UK for the staging of Amadeus and Twelfth Night. National Theatre Live launched in June 2009 with a
broadcast of the National Theatre production of Phèdre with Helen Mirren. They have since broadcast more than 40
other productions live, from both the National Theatre and other theatres in
the UK. This global viewing experience will take place on July 5 at 15h00 (Twelfth
Night) and 19h00 (Amadeus).
FRENCH
WORKS AT THE NATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL
A long-standing partner of the National
Art’s Festival, the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS) will again bring
French-inspired works to the programme. The ‘enfant terrible’ of French poetry,
Arthur Rimbaud, will be brought to life in The
Alchemy Of Words. The play focuses on Rimbaud’s short-lived poetry career
and the profound impact it had on the poetry of the 1800’s, going on to inspire
artists such as André Breton, Dylan Thomas, Jack Kerouac, Bob Dylan, Patti
Smith and Jim Morrison. See it on July 1,,2 and 3.
Also made possible with the support of the
French Institute South Africa (IFAS) and Alliance Française Southern Africa, is
The Fortune Cookie Company’s Tartuffe.
Directed by former Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner (2006), Sylvaine
Strike, the cast heaves with theatre heavyweights and fresh talent from Neil
McCarthy and Craig Morris to Khutjo Green and Camilla Waldman.
The piece tells the story of destructive
influence and power through Moliere’s traditional satire but with Strike’s
fresh vision and a pre-war epoch, 1930s treatment. Having toured in Cape Town,
Johannesburg and Durban, festival-goers will be treated to Tartuffe’s Eastern Cape premier on June 29 and 30 and July 1.
ENTICING
NEW WORK ON THE ARENA
National Arts Festival Executive Producer,
Ashraf Johaardien, says: “Theatre addicts know that the National Arts
Festival’s Arena is a fast-fix of edgy new work from some of the artists who
are shaping a new generation of theatre.” The Arena is composed of productions
that have won either a Standard Bank Ovations Award on the National Arts
Festival Fringe or an international award at one of the National Arts
Festival’s partner festivals. With support from Business and Arts South Africa,
this year’s Arena is a collection of spellbinding, thought-provoking pieces.
The fast-paced, decisive Reparation is written, directed and
designed by Ameera Conrad and presented by Hungry Minds Productions. “An all
local-content theatre production for the new age theatre goer” it’s a dark
comedy that explores the ‘final reparation’ in South African politics on June 30
and July 1 and 2.
Awarded the Dioraphte ‘Best of Amsterdam
Fringe 2016’ award, Macho Macho Is an
ironic exploration of masculinity through a physical ‘dance’ between two men
who are questioning the objectified world they are being subjected to …. what
is behind those Calvin Klein sixpacks? Brought to the Festival by the World
Fringe Alliance, audiences can see it on July 3, 4, 6 and 7.
Robaby Productions’ Kid Casino sees the irrepressible Roberto Pombo pair up with Joni
Barnard in a play about the underbelly of casino addiction as two young
children caper through the casino whilst their mother stays glued to the slot
machines. Showing on July 6, 7, 8 and 9.
The much-anticipated new work of 2016
Standard Bank Young Artist for Theatre 2016 and recent Naledi Award winner,
Jade Bowers’ Black features Ameera
Patel in Penny Youngleson’s adaptation of CA Davids’ Blacks of Cape Town. The narrative, in split chapter form, shifts
between past and present – from New Jersey where lead character Zara Black
finds herself alone and displaced, to South Africa of the past and present- as
she grapples with constructing a history for herself and her family from
fragmented recollections and family lore. Performances take place on June 29
and 30 as well as July 1 and 2.
Greg Homann, a member of the artistic
committee’s theatre sub-committee (along with Lara Bye, Mwenya Kabwe and Warona
Seane) says “South Africa’s longstanding theatre tradition of creating new work
that disrupts, challenges, and questions is alive and well.” Evident in the
subject matter, the ideas and the experimentation that comes with the 2017
Festival programme, artists are not just responding to the turmoil of a world
facing any number of possible futures and slippery slopes, they are rewiring
imaginations and outcomes in bold remixes that search and sweat for answers.
The National Arts Festival’s programme is
online and available for booking on the site www.nationalartsfestival.co.za
The
National Arts Festival is grateful to: the Department of Arts and Culture,
Eastern Cape Department of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture and the Office
of the Premier, and Standard Bank of South Africa. Media partners include MNET
and City Press.
Posts
