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.
EPISODE TWO OF Martyn Le Roux’s Die Soutwaterheks positions the murky unknown in place. Recorded and released independently online, in both MP3 and MP4 formats, in Afrikaans with bits of English, it is accessible through various links, and breaks moulds of what storytelling can be in several ways. […]
PICTURE THE SCENARIO: It’s the time of the American Civil War. An exclusive coterie of Southern virginal young women live together in an isolated house on the brink of a wood. One day one of them discovers a wounded soldier among the mushrooms. Garbed in blue, he’s of […]
JUST WHEN YOU may think you in your society are ‘normal’ and above criticism (and better than the previous generation), along comes a work of such great wit and wisdom, tragic nuance and poetry that your values will shift. Even a tad. In three distinct acts, Die Laaste […]
CONJURING UP A whole bunch of clichés regarding fishes and sustainability, Like Water is for Fish promises an insight into storytelling and the magic it tosses into our midst, yet it feels in so many respects like a tick-box exercise on a bucket list. Garth Japhet, the co-founder […]
DO THE THINGS that go ‘boo!’ in the night still have fresh value of their own to curdle your blood and populate your nightmares? This is a question you may ponder when you see Doctor Sleep, a film marketed with horror novelist Stephen King’s name, which turns out […]
OF RAIN AND curiosity, the personality of mountains, love and loss, this week’s Radio Sonder Grense drama slot is filled with the sound and fury of beautiful poetry. Born in 1871, Afrikaans poet Eugène Marais was to become one of the language’s most mysterious and romantic characters in […]
WHEN YOU ENCOUNTER the crisp freshness in John Crowley’s Brooklyn, a filmic interpretation of Colm Toibin’s novel of the same name, you will realise that it is all pervading. From the use of dress to the understanding of light, colour, narrative and performance, this 2015 film is nothing […]
THERE IS A new story boiling under the pen of Afrikaans playwright Martyn le Roux, and it seems like it will be something which will get you bingeing in a radio format. Die Soutwaterheks is a series le Roux has written and worked into the magical medium of […]
MURDER MOST FOUL is a very well trodden field in storytelling. But under Adelle van Wyk’s pen, with Makkie Onthou, the story is a lot richer with heart, the texture of society and love, than most whodunnits. You can hear this beautiful work tonight, 29 April on Radio […]
WELCOME TO THE Oasis, where bad feelings lie in everyone’s heart, and money is too tight to mention. No whores, no drugs, no gambling, this club is a ‘rite of passage’ jazz venue for many young people, and it values its squeaky clean reputation, but everyone, it seems, […]
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