YOU NEED TO quietly gather your sensibilities when you find yourself in the presence of sheer perfection. Several decades ago, theatre practitioner Margot Luyt directed Peter Shaffer’s enormous Mozartian play, Amadeus. It had been translated into Afrikaans and reworked for radio by Nerina Ferreira. This completely flawless rendition […]
Researched by Robyn Jordaan COMPLETE WITH HER freshly applied lipstick and her internal fierceness in the face of the ordinary, Christine Basson shied from the light of media sensationalism, but had the temerity to take on some of South African theatre’s most controversial roles luminously. She raised a […]
NON-BINARY SOUTH AFRICAN performance artist Dean Hutton has stood on the outside looking in, for most of their life. While this may be a horribly lonely position for a child, it is one of supreme potency for an artist at the summit of their personal, political and artistic […]
THERE ARE FEW things as comforting to the heart and soul as a beloved theatre chestnut, coddled by time and roasted with retelling. Radio Sonder Grense brings to its listeners a Christmas gift today, by way of a radio theatre production of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Tale. Penniegryper: […]
SOMETIMES, IT TAKES a little more than the humdrum ebb and flow of domestic life that allows for spite and malice to manifest on every corner. Sometimes one needs to wake up, listen to the music and show a bit of empathy. This is the primary message in […]
PREPARE TO BE swept away by the political ambitions of a humble orange-dungareed young man with a man ban, a blanket stick and a cheeky yellow Tom Cat, in the National Theatre’s pantomime Dick Whittington, which you can see, for the next couple of days, for free online. […]
“DON’T COMPROMISE YOURSELF; you are all you got,” were the words that Zoleka Helesi wrote on social media as a hook to her strongest beliefs. A giant of South African theatre, who took roles by their heart and guts allowed them to grab at immortality, Helesi believed implicitly […]
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN you assemble a room full of opinionated characters (and an elderly, deaf accompanist) with a deadline and a music repertoire to perform in public? Broer Gawerjal Grootwoord (Ivan Abrahams) is the choir master who has his hands full in Hallelujah Amen, a delightful piece of […]
A THEATRE OPENING event in Johannesburg never felt complete before the arrival of Des and Dawn Lindberg, arguably one of South African theatre’s First Couples. When they entered the auditorium to take their places in a production’s audience, it felt as though a precious parental blessing had been […]
THE DIRTY IDEOLOGY of apartheid was enforced on many levels. It saw the ignominious burial of grotesque secrets. Some more deeply than others. Indeed some of those secrets were never sufficiently exhumed for general access, not at the time, not during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and not […]
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