Westville Boys’ High School proudly presents its first South African
Short Play Festival, featuring performances by the school’s most prolific young
actors and writers. For one week only, four productions, Master Harold... And The Boys, The Ugly Noo Noo, White Men With Weapons
and a brand-new South African musical penned by Matric learner Cameron
Parle entitled The Couch, will be staged
in the Roy Couzens Theatre, open to school groups and members of the public
alike.
The programme is directed by head of Performing Arts at the school, Luke
Holder, and presented in association with DALRO.
The Ugly Noo Noo was performed for
the first time in 1988 and it has since received 17 national and international
awards for the script, direction and the performance. In this play, playwright
Andrew Buckland explores the mythology of fear; our own terrifying battle with
irrational and crippling fear. The Parktown Prawn, which is a type of small
pink cricket, inspires fear in people because of its creepy appearance and its
aggressive self-defence methods. During the play, a man discovers a fleshy,
living underworld, underneath his lawn whilst mowing it. He starts exploring
this otherworld and soon finds himself battling against being sucked into it;
which symbolizes man’s inner and outer struggles. Our hero eventually tumbles
down into this world with an act of physical theatre that suspends belief. The
man finds himself trapped in a glass jar with the Parktown Prawn and this is
where things get weird and interesting.
The 13 vignettes of different army types presented in Greig Coetzee’s
masterpiece White Men With Weapons are
based on his real-life experience as a conscripted left-wing activist in the
South African Defence Force. The play is set in the barracks of the South
African Defence Force (SADF) in 1990, just before the release of Nelson Mandela
and the subsequent lifting of the ban on the ANC. Coetzee’s punch-drunk
soldiers, of both Afrikaans and English descent, are about to be shocked out of
their privileged racist existence where anything goes, and they’ll be left
obsolete and directionless. The most astute character is the autobiographical
one, who explains at the end that life in South Africa isn’t all black and
white (metaphorically as well as literally), but there are ambiguities and
complexities that outsiders can never understand fully – and that goes for
attitudes to the army as well.
The Couch tells the story of
Phillip, a man in his 70s faced with his own mortality as he celebrates what he
believes might be his last birthday in the old age home (Happy Ever After
Retirement Home) he has been dumped in by his children. Told with humour and
pathos by matric learner Cameron Parle, and featuring an original score written
performed live during the presentation, Phillip’s story reflects our obsession
with nostalgia and regret, in a world that he no longer understands. Says Parle
of his own work, “The show is loosely based on Harry Chapin’s hit song Cat’s in the Cradle and tries to capture
the great sense of loss we experience as we move quietly through the seven ages
of man.
In Athol Fugard’s play, Master
Harold”...And The Boys, a 17-year-old white boy is befriended by the two
black waiters who work in his family’s restaurant in 1950s South Africa. One of
the waiters – Sam – has been, in many ways, more of a father to Hally than his
own bigoted and alcoholic father. Yet, as Hally approaches adulthood he is
caught between his affection for the black man and the racist influences of his
father. Sam, despite a lack of formal education, has the tremendous wisdom and
foresight to see this conflict in Hally and tries to teach him life lessons
that will prevent Hally from becoming, in the words of Nelson Mandela, that
“prisoner of hatred.” Tragically, as the play unfolds, Hally makes a terrible
choice that rekindles the influences of prejudice.
The festival runs from February 13 to 17, 2019, as follows:
February 13:
09h00 (schools only): Master
Harold... And The Boys and White Men
With Weapons
18h00: Master Harold... And The
Boys and The Ugly Noo Noo
February 14:
09h00 (schools only): Master
Harold... And The Boys and The Ugly
Noo Noo
18h00: White Men With Weapons and
The Couch
February 15:
09h00 (schools only): Master
Harold... And The Boys and The Couch
18h00: The Ugly Noo Noo and The Couch
February 16:
18h00: White Men With Weapons and
Master Harold... And The Boys
February 17:
13h00: White Men With Weapons and
Master Harold... And The Boys
17h00: The Ugly Noo Noo and The Couch
All double bills run for approximately three hours with an interval to
allow for set changes.
All shows cost R50 for adults and R20 for scholars. Block bookings of 10
people or more qualify for a discounted price of R10 per ticket. Bookings can
be made by emailing tickets@wbhs.co.za
Regret no children under the age of 13 can attend, due to language,
nudity and themes of prejudice.
For more information, contact Luke Holder at the school on 031 267
1330 or via email lholder@wbhs.co.za
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