Category: Robyn Sassen

Dick and the power of hope

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. […]

How to herd cats

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 […]

The cross Beatrice carries

WHAT DO YOU tell the mother of a special needs child who has to face a medical challenge way beyond her means, emotionally or otherwise? Die Masjientjie by Joe Kleinhans is a subtle tale of hypocrisy and heartbreak and offers caveats that tease open some really complex moral […]

Lessons in Being There: RIP Shirley Sacks

“BE READY FOR anything. Expect nothing!” was one of the unforgettable pearls offered by thespian Shirley Sacks to generations of performance students over a 33-year teaching career at the Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria. Teaching in the creative arts is unquestionably a vocational blessing of the highest […]

Things that go bump in the night

IN AN ERA rotten with cynicism and broken dreams, the pristine magic of true supernatural horror almost feels anachronistic, and it takes a strong directorial wisdom to be able to re-establish a sense of the scary without slipping into spoof. This is what you can expect in the […]

My ticket out of here

WHAT DO YOU do when you are itchy for adventure and the boring farm in which you have been raised is simply that: boring, in its politics, its values, its chances for love and its ordinariness? If you’re Gisela (Christine Voorendyk), you simply look out the window. This […]

Mantoa: Forgotten by Death

AS THIS FILM begins to unfurl, there are moments, from a cinematographic perspective that will leave you with your mouth hanging open. Devastatingly beautiful washes of colour and light conveying men on horses and a community broken by discontent permeate this work like swathes of poetry. This film, […]