For the second year running, the Market
Theatre Laboratory will be represented on the Main, Fringe and Student
platforms of the National Arts Festival in Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown),
creating a compelling presence and affirming the importance of theatre created
and performed by young people about their contemporary realities.
Where do news headlines go to die? Does the
news serve or control the people? The Market Theatre Laboratory’s final year
students interrogate this and other questions around identity, propaganda,
individuality, control and agency in Le
Journal, presented for the first time on the National Arts Festival’s
student theatre platform. The world of the neglected newsreel, the headlines
that are everywhere one moment and gone without a trace the next, create a rich
and relevant world for this exciting new play. Last year, the Market Theatre
Laboratory scooped Best Production in the Student Awards for Marose, and this production intends to
continue the Market Theatre Laboratory’s record of presenting excellent and
watchable student theatre.
Kwasha! Theatre Company, a collaborative
project between the Market Theatre Laboratory and the Windybrow Arts Centre,
will be presenting two exciting works. On the main platform, DEURnis/ Uzwelo will see Kwasha!
collaborating with Theatrerocket’s award-winning DEURnis artists on an
innovative new immersive theatre experience. In this site-specific production,
solo plays are performed in different spaces in a house or building for a
single audience member at a time, making for an extraordinarily intimate
experience. Each play lasts about 20 minutes, and the audience members move
from one space to the next to experience different stories taking an honest,
often sober look at emotional and everyday issues.
Kwasha! will also present their
self-created work, Currently (G)old,
directed by company members Sinenhlanhla Mgeyi and Aalliyah Matintela, and
mentored by Market Theatre Laboratory alumni Prince Lamla. Currently Gold explores how young South Africans perceive and
exercise their human rights, using satire to interrogate and at times ridicule
their relevance to the lived experience of many people in South Africa.
While this range of theatre offerings is
diverse in performance style and content, it is united in that it offers
original, contemporary theatre that speaks to the current reality of young people
in Johannesburg and beyond, to festival audiences.
For further information contact lusandaz@markettheatre.co.za
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