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Saturday, March 28, 2020

NEW FROM JUNKETS PUBLISHER


(Left: “Die 9de Maand” cover)

Robin Malan, founder of the Junkets Publisher company has announced that for the first time in its nine-year history, the Zabalaza Theatre Festival at the Baxter Theatre Centre declared two Joint-Winners of the 2019 Zabalaza Theatre Festival. This has given Junkets the opportunity to publish two new playscripts, in collaboration with the Baxter Theatre Centre.

Tyron Zoutman’s play Die 9de Maand is an intriguing exploration of the lives of four Coloured Male university students who, while friends, are both united and divided by a very significant secret. Something happened at the graduation after-party … something they would like to remain a secret but which the world wants to know. 

The major theme of the play is betrayal, of friends by a friend. Something else the four young men share is the absence of a viable father figure in their lives.

(Right: “Ukuwa kweNkaba” cover)

Not altogether surprisingly, that same theme is at the centre of Mthobisi Mpandle’s play Ukuwa kweNkaba (The Cord). Father has moved away from his rural family to the city, and connection between him and his wife and two sons is broken. The community wonders if the second son Lungile is his father’s son. Where was his umbilical cord buried? This causes grave anxieties in Lungile’s mind, and he does not seem to be able to get a clear answer from anyone, least of all his mother. The play ends without Lungile having found a resolution to his dilemma.

(Left: “Benji” cover)

The third newly-released playscript from Junkets is the runner-up in the 2019 SCrIBE Playwriting Competition run by the Imbewu Trust. This play is Benji by Terence Makapan. Again, it features fathers and sons, but in a different context. Young James is a rent boy who responds to an out call, and finds himself in the home of an older man who has expectations of him very different from the usual. The interplay between these two characters, each of whom needs to find a resolution to something in their pasts, results in a striking piece of theatre.

All three of these plays can be ordered from Junkets by emailing info.junkets@iafrica.com .
  
The Winner of the SCrIBE Playwriting Competition has been published by the author Koleka Putuma in association with Junkets Publisher. The play’s title is No Easter Sunday for Queers. Two young lesbian women find themselves in a head-on collision with the Christian church to which they both belong. The issue is further complicated by the fact that the pastor of the church is also the father of one of them.

(Right: “No Easter Sunday for Queers” cover)

Information, pricing and availability of this play can be obtained from cocoputuma@gmail.com.

Coming soon from Junkets (as soon as the lockdown is lifted) is the highly anticipated new play from Mike van Graan, sporting his longest title yet: Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Metaphors.

More information on email:info.junkets@iafrica.com or visit www.junkets.co.za