Robyn Sassen
A freelance arts writer since 1998, I fell in love with the theatre as a toddler, proved rubbish as a ballerina: my starring role was as Mrs Pussy in Noddy as a seven-year-old, and earned my stripes as an academic in Fine Arts and Art History, in subsequent years. I write for a range of online and print publications, including the Sunday Times, the Mail & Guardian and artslink.co.za and was formerly the arts editor of the SA Jewish Report, a weekly newspaper with which I was associated for 16 years. I am currently a Research Associate at Wits University. This blog promises you new stories every week, be they reviews, profiles, news stories or features.
Dudu Yende (pictured) larger than life actress, performer and contemporary dancer, was known and loved for her irreverent manipulation of the English language. A passionate outreach collaborator, a loving mother and a generous friend, recognised as an icon, a diva and a sister to so many, passed away […]
When you think of the idea of celebrating the life of a great political icon in song, Argentina’s Eva Peron and the astonishingly flawless film Evita made by Alan Parker in 1996 comes quickly to mind. It was based on the Rice/Lloyd-Webber stage production of the same name, […]
You’ll need sunglasses to fully appreciate what glitter artist Leanne Shakenovsky has done with the idea of a painting by well-known South African painter JH Pierneef of the town of Heidelberg in the former Transvaal. Cast into tones and tints of gold glitter, it’s completely dazzling and Shakenovsky’s […]
Snakes crawling out of the wall might not necessarily be your idea of a beautiful art exhibition, but it will certainly get your attention, and in some of these glimmering, scaly works, you will be horrified, but you won’t want to stop looking at them. In her fourth […]
Something must be said for the unequivocal beauty of intelligent satire handled with such vicious acuity that it makes you laugh with glee to watch morally horrifying corruption at play. Mpho Osei-Tutu and Jerry Mntonga capture an understanding of Zakes Mda’s ‘man’ to an insightful tee, but […]
It’s so unnerving and exciting and wonderful to see young performers cutting their teeth in the richness and darkness of Greek classical tragedy that you quickly overlook student faux pas and get swept away by the creative enthusiasm in this rough but thoughtful rendition of Sophocles’ Oedipus. There […]
SA-born television producer Gary Reich, 44, sums up his life, career and universe in clipped English. “It’s all good,” the producer of runaway success sitcom Vicious, says. In a visit to SA, to see his mother, veteran performer Annabel Linder onstage in Twilight of the Golds, he spoke […]
Deep Fried Man Kills (Joburg Theatre Fringe, Braamfontein), until May 10. While his stage persona, replete with its expressionless face, and neat bowtie and hat, is enticing, evoking the gods of irony and the kind of juxtaposition of emotional values that Charlie Chaplin’s persona did, the impetus […]
A knee-jerk response to the idea of another production of the Sound of Music, the inimitable squeaky clean musical that was played in many a household in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s on LP records, is a groan. Do we really need to revive these old musicals with […]
Playing dangerously on the idea that ‘dying’ and ‘killing’ in theatre mean doing badly and doing well, respectively, Daniel Friedman, 33, aka Deep Fried Man (pictured), spoke to the SA Jewish Report on the eve of the opening of his third one man show, Deep Fried Man Kills. […]
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