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.
ROUGH AND WISE words constructed around a complex and nuanced narrative and cast within the folds of metaphors and figures of speech, wickedly flipping languages up against one another, can never get old. Particularly if they are performed with a guttural perfection that is peppered with physical theatre […]
IF YOU ARE tired of all the spiteful whims, silly platitudes and bald one-upmanships that our social-media-inflamed world has become heir to, Fisherman’s Friends directed by Chris Foggin is a tonic with which to start the year. Featuring the inimitable David Hayman and the completely seductive landscape of […]
FILM DIRECTOR BONG Joon Ho is clearly the Quentin Tarantino of contemporary Korean film. His highly feted Parasite is a compelling piece of extremely violent film wrapped in the sweet-seeming but deeply sour saccharine of a tale within a tale within a tale. It leaves you quiveringly aware […]
Please note: This production uses strobes YOU AND YOUR child will be completely captivated by the infectious rhythms, madcap narrative and satisfying choreography in the current extremely slickly performed and directed production of Seussical, at the Lyric theatre, and it may be just the ticket for you – […]
THE DIFFICULT AND lonely place that an illness without obvious visible signs brings remains fraught, to this day, with speculation and gossip, taboos and embarrassment. In this week’s Afrikaans-language radio drama on Radio Sonder Grense, Man op die Maan (man on the moon), written by Helena Mellet, which […]
ICE SHOWS IN Johannesburg are strange phenomena. They come with promises of wow, and a sense of the amazingly exotic. And for the first few minutes after the curtain rises, you’re glowingly aware that the stage is all frozen over and every movement on it is conducted with […]
Please note: This production makes extensive use of strobe lights. FEE-FIE-FOE-FUM! YOU CAN smell the energy of a brand new pantomime, which reeks ‘event’ in glittery stuff and shiny things from the moment you enter the theatre. There are some very clear budget cuts in this year’s Joburg […]
WHEN A PLOT grabs you by key emotions and then twists and turns and slips and escapes your ability to predict its nuances, you get completely caught in what it has to offer. Bill Condon’s film The Good Liar, featuring stellar performers Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren, is […]
SOMETIMES, ALL YOU need, for a cultural pick-me-up that allows you to remember that there is true artistic greatness in this broken little world of ours, all you need to do is step into a movie theatre. But not just any movie theatre. On this particular occasion, if […]
TAKE A LOOK at your teenager, all wrapped up as they might be, with ear phones and the screen of their cell phone flashing vaguely and surreally against their face. Do you know exactly what they are doing on social media? Do you know who they are accessing, […]
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