SOMETHING UNBELIEVABLY RIGHT happens when an audience that has never experienced Shakespeare onstage before shrieks when two lovers kiss, boos the bad guys and gets itself into a tizz when injustice is perpetrated. It gives Shakespeare a voice. And when that happens in Johannesburg in 2025 with high school pupils, you know that the world is turning beautifully on its fulcrum, no matter what sham, dram and evil is being perpetuated everywhere else. Johannesburg audiences, comprised primarily of high school students studying the respective plays, were recently treated to productions of Romeo and Juliet, Othello and Hamlet.

In the former, produced by Purple Apple Productions and directed by Mandla Gaduka, at the Tesson Theatre, Joburg Theatre complex, a fresh take on the love story that defined all love stories, was evoked. This had as much to do with the beautiful articulation of the work as it did with the performers’ real connection to their audience. Soiso Ndaba as Romeo and his young love Juliet (Hlobisile Mahlangu) injected an understanding of love across the family feud lines and in spite of everything, with a chasteness and a boldness that gave this star-crossed couple the kind of relevance that made you weep. It was a production that cut made the love platitudes fresh and their own.

And the sincerity of the work was given wealth in the aspect of an understanding of mourning and age, when the two dads – Lord Montague (Prince Phuma Dlamini) and Lord Capulet (Mandla Gaduka) finally reconcile. Adultly and in the face of the heaviest losses of all.

But the player central to this charming production was Amanda Seome who played Lady Capulet. Dressed in a too-close-fitting frock and towering over her stage husband, she felt awkward onstage, from the get-go, but as the work unfolded with its tragic narrative in tow, so did this performer wield an understanding of the emotional heaviness and potency of the loss of her child with a rich and guttural ownership of the character, the text and her role.

Hamlet and Othello were played under the direction of Clare Mortimer at the Keorepatse William Kgositile Theatre at the University of Johannesburg and the works performed in tandem lent an understanding of the values of repertory theatre that doesn’t really exist in this city any longer.  

But Danny Meaker is an unequivocal stand-out Hamlet and Rodrigo, with his sense of character intact. There is a piece of theatre gold in the interchange between Hamlet and Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern (played by Jeremy Richard and Tafara Nyatsanza respectively) that blends timing, a bouncing ball and the give and take between young men with perfection. Richard is a truly hateful Iago that had the students booing with compelling fury and Nyatsanza, also performs a clown in Othello, who steals a moment and makes it shine.

And then, there is Blessing Xaba, who plays Montana, Governor of Cypress in Othello and various cameos in Hamlet, including the grave-digger who unearths the skull of Yorick. This performer lends a sense of both gravitas and wit to his roles that hold your heart.

All three of these works shone with beautiful and wise skill and construction, but above all with the magic that plants seeds in young theatre goers’ sensibilities. Forever.

Romeo and Juliet was written by William Shakespeare and directed by Mandla Gaduka. Performed by Prince Phuma Dlamini, Mandla Gaduka, Thami Gxubane, Hlobisile Mahlangu, Melusi Sandiso Nhleko, Soiso Ndaba, Andile Tevin Nsibande, Amanda Seome and Thandeka Shangase, it was produced by Purple Apple Productions (Pty) Ltd, featured fight choreography by Soiso Ndaba and stage managed by Siya Nkosi, during a brief season in April 2025 at the Tesson Theatre, Joburg Theatre complex in Braamfontein, Johannesburg.

Othello and Hamlet were written by William Shakespeare and directed by Clare Mortimer. Performed by Michael Gritten, Belinda Henwood, Darren King, Kaylee McIlroy, Danny Meaker, Byron McNeil, Tafara Myatsanza, Jeremy Richard, Anele Situlweni, Kira Timm and Blessing Xaba, they were produced by Margie Coppen and Clare Mortimer of Think Theatre and featured set design and construction by Clare Mortimer and Bryan Hiles, costumes by Clare Mortimer and shadow puppetry by Christelle van Graan. They were onstage during May 2025 at the Keorepatse William Kgositile Theatre, University of Johannesburg campus, Auckland Park, Johannesburg.