There are times in ‘Prima Facie’ when you aren’t sure if it is your own heart-beat you’re aware of, or whether it is the play’s soundscape. Suddenly it is not really Tessa Ensler’s story any more. It’s yours. It’s that of the woman sitting next to you. It’s your sister’s.
In a country plagued by alcoholism and suicide, David Ireland’s ‘The Fifth Step’ directed by Charmaine Weir-Smith at the Baxter Studio Theatre in Cape Town, brings a richly potent conversation to the forefront without drowning you in stats or sadness. It is beautifully performed by Albert Pretorius and Lyle October.
It’s a work sophisticated in its thinking, crude in its extrapolation. It speaks from the belly. While you’re guffawing with embarrassed recognition, the goosebumps on your skin rise; you feel feverish at the narrative underlying the words which subverts the dry face of statistics and shouts the ugly hypocritical truths.
On a level, Micaela Jade Tucker’s one-woman play is an advocacy piece about taking care of a woman’s body, with all its tendencies to pick up judgement, viruses and other things. It’s about broken condoms, reeling ideas in and taking responsibility for who you think you are in the world.
WE LIVE IN a world that would be unrecognisable to anyone of a previous generation. It’s a world where spite and malice can have legs that last forever and a tail that can destroy lives. Indeed, it’s a world where a silly gag can land a child with […]
HOWEVER YOU LOOK at it, in the face of wokeness and cancel culture, an opening of our collective hearts and the sparkly proliferation of social media memes celebrating those who are different, we still live in a world of bodily imperatives. In order to be considered ‘normal’ you’ve […]
TAKE AN HISTORICAL site of worship that shrieks 1980s community in South Africa. Rattle its proverbial bones with the shadows and demons of what was profoundly taboo to that sense of community, then. Toss in some harsh lights, a dash of stage smoke and doef-doef music to make […]
SPORT IS ONE of South Africa’s religions. It’s also been a cute metaphorical way of dealing with other concerns of a political ilk, in popular culture. Whistleblowers, created by the cast and directed by Rob Murray and Quintijn Relouw, takes things much deeper: it’s a scary, relevant and […]
IN A SACRED circle painted on the grass of the Hilton College campus, real magic takes place in the hands of Andile Vilakazi and Sbusiso Mhlongo. It’s the kind of magic that will not only affect your thinking about the pecking order of the gods that rule this […]
SIT STILL FOR a moment and listen. If you are lucky enough to be in a place where birdsong reaches your ears before the angry rush of traffic, hold onto that. But try to hear what those birds are saying, and take heed. This is the nub of […]
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