(Aldo Brincat: supplied)
Dialogue is fast and furious, moving through the cast of characters. He certainly keeps you on your toes! Don’t miss it! (Review by Caroline Smart)
Before moving into the review, I’d like to make a personal point of saying what a great delight it was to see Aldo Brincat back on a Durban stage. I’ve known him for close on 45 years and have watched his impressive growth as a performer and a friend. The last time he performed in Durban was 20 years ago when he appeared in Rajesh Gopie’s “The Coolie Odyssey” in the Playhouse Drama Theatre. Glad to hear from him that “it is stunning to be back in Durban to connect with old friends and meet new ones.”
Back to business!
The Moon Looks Delicious from Here has a final performance at Rhumbelow Theatre tomorrow (Sunday 26, 2023) at 14h00.
The play is directed by Sjaka S Septembir and explores immigrant family dynamics and how they shape identity and heritage in a first-generation citizen in a 70-minute, semi-autobiographical one-man theatre show through the mediums of physical theatre, mime and characterisation.
The play has been created by Brincat as a “monument” representing family, place, current and past times. This is forming part of his academic research as he is a Masters student of Visual Arts at Stellenbosch University.
The Moon Looks Delicious from Here showcases Brincat’s impressive qualities as an actor and magician – as well as his good movement skills. Having begun his professional career under Nicholas Ellenbogen at the newly-founded Loft Theatre Company at the Natal Playhouse (now the Playhouse Company) in 1987, Brincat went on to study theatre in Paris at the legendary Ecole Jacque Le Coq, after which he toured Scandinavia, Europe and Russia as a professional ballet dancer as part of the corps de ballet. He speaks English, Afrikaans and French fluently.
The play’s title comes from a family joke. His father was a foreigner with a difficult grasp of English words, one of which was “delicious”.
The “moon” and “from here” looks at how one can
be in different parts of the world and see the moon from a different
perspective.
“My father, who was a magician, taught me magic when I was a small boy of 9 or 10. He had learnt from his own father,” Brincat explains, adding that the production was mostly autobiographical with a bit of poetic licence.
The stage is completely bare – only Brincat, what he’s wearing and his talent with handling the rings. Pure magic!
The performance starts with Brincat standing and seemingly searching for someone. He is carrying two of the six Chinese linking rings he uses. He places one ring on his head to resemble a hat and then moves to the other side of the stage, removes his “hat” and adopts a feminine posture, using the second ring as a fan. These characters are his father and mother at their first meeting.
Often speaking in French, Aldo weaves history around four main characters: his mother, father, friend Wayne and Aldo himself, apart from a range of minor characters such as the aggressive officer at the Bantu Affairs. My favourite scene was of Aldo as a young boy trying to wriggle out of his father’s insistence that he rehearses for a forthcoming competition.
Dialogue is fast and furious, moving through the cast of characters. He certainly keeps you on your toes! Don’t miss it!
The final performance takes place at Rhumbelow Theatre in Umbilo tomorrow (Sunday February 26 at 14h00)
There is safe onsite parking. No refreshments to be bought onto site – bar and snacks available.
Tickets R160 available at www.computicket.com or 082 499 8636 or email: roland@stansell.co.za
Rhumbelow Theatre is situated at 42 Cunnigham Road in Umbilo.
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