ART IS A weird thing. It’s all pretty and beautiful until something reaches so deeply into the core for your reason for existing, it becomes sacred. A Season in Hillbrow is the kind of production that takes an immensity of skill but also the directorial wisdom and maturity to stand back and allow young performers to have their voice and to relish in it. This was a 10 out of 10 show: the ensemble work of the year, in this website’s opinion.

And while any high school drama teacher will know that coordinating teenagers around an established script is like herding cats, directors Gerard Bester and Sibahle Mangena have gone much further. Facilitating the cast of over 30 teenagers, aged between 13 and 19, to voice their opinions about complex social issues, ranging from xenophobia to homelessness, the history of the June 16, 1976 riots to abuse, rebellion to dreams for the future, the work is tight, it has levity and it will seesaw you through every kind of emotion you have in you. Don’t wear mascara. Bring tissues.

Working with a set comprising the skeletons of school desks, the piece is synchronised poetically and linguistically. Workshopped in its words and songs by the cast, it articulates the most astounding oxymorons in its simple and sharp language: it’s about being ten times older than your mother, or embracing the beautiful terribleness of Johannesburg’s flatlands. It plays with the school associated cliches built by large scale political musicals of the ilk of Sarafina, as it finds its own voice, crystal clear and potent.

But it is the presence of 19-year-old Sandiso Mbatha that arguably pirouettes this work into the realms of the sacred. He’s a ‘plant’ in the audience as the piece begins. His vocal presence is such that he was able to command the space of a full John Kani theatre, enabling his voice to underpin and punctuate great activity onstage, and lending it the tone and contrast that made the work shine. Irrevocably.

The magic of this piece is also in its prescience and in the joy of being on stage articulated by its young cast. Arthur Rimbaud, the French proto-surrealist outsider poet on whose work the idea for this production is based, was just 18 when he wrote his ‘Season in Hell’. This is the provocative, angry, perplexed, emotional voice of our youth. And it is full of blood and unsettling  illogic. It has witnessed things it should be too young to have seen. It has been made to take decisions way before its time. But it is ours and it’s riddle with hope.

• A Season in Hillbrow after Arthur Rimbaud’s Une saison en enferis created by Sahar Carter, Twiggy Matiwana, Stacy Hardy, Louis Roux and Césaire Youth 2026. Directed by Gerard Bester and Sibahle Mangena with additional workshops by Tamara Guhrs, Thando Khumalo, Tumi Mogorosi, Lesego Rampolokeng and Namatai Takaindisa, it is choreographed by Siya Dlamini, and features costumes by Siphesihle Fakude; compositions by Sibahle Mangena, Sandiso Mbatha, Sbusiso Shozi and Césaire Youth 2026; soundscape by Césaire Youth 2026 and Playgroup; and filming by Twiggy Matiwana. It was performed by Césaire Youth 2026, which comprises Joshua Banda, Siphesihle Buthelezi, Tinevimbo Dhomiyo, Angel Dube, Natasha Dube, Oratile Job, Malcolm Kakaire, Miracle Kamanga, Prince Kekana, Thapedi Kguwana, Aphelele Kubheka, Reabetswe Leopeng, Sandiso Mbatha, Sonqoba Mbatha, Sbongakonke Mgube, Siphesihle Mubviri, Thandeka Mugwagwa, Mbalenhle Ncube, Nokthula Ndlovu, Unathi Ndlovu, Lwazi Ngoboza, Nontobeko Ngubane, Luzuko Nkosi, Indi Ntoni, Lesley Sibanda, Andisa Sihlangu, Mandisa Sihlangu, Michael Sithole, Shirley Vundla, Simpiwe Ximba, Aphile Xulu and Olwethu Zondi, at the John Kani Theatre, Market Theatre complex as part of the Cradle of Creativity Festival, during August 2026.