With her impish gap-toothed grin and her sprite-like existence onstage and in the interstices of the stories she told, fearless and impetuous dancer and choreographer Dada Masilo leaves a brilliant legacy that radically shifted an understanding of what dance from South Africa can and should be, anywhere in the world.
When Cavaradossi (Freddie de Tommaso), having been tortured emerges full of love for Tosca, his aria ‘E lucevan de stelle’, a declaration of his undying belief in her, will melt you. You know this song even if you don’t. And what De Tommaso does with it, will may you cry.
In ‘Bush Brothers’, premised on de Witt’s experiences in the Angolan war, reflected on by war historians as South Africa’s ‘Vietnam’ in terms of the damage it wrought and its purposelessness, you get to understand the horror of violent sudden loss, the impact of friendship and terror of the unknown.
This play is about how broken ordinary things can have another life punctuated by different metaphors and idioms, because of their brokenness. It presents a set of values that also apply to broken people. It’s about the sensitive, beating nexus that makes a curious, maybe traumatised child into an artist.
‘Kite Flying at World’s End’ is a beautiful, lucid read, edited to be tight and brief in its splaying out of the whole universe rolled into a few weeks. It leaves you with your heart holding onto the things that matter and a respect for how things must turn out.
Van Graan’s wit ranges from political one-liners that make you hear the proverbial “Ba Dum Tss” at the punch line in your mind’s ear, to brilliant sketches that reverberate with smart puns and rude twists of linguistic fate, not to mention the tweaking of popular songs into oft political weapons.
‘Nye’ is about parliamentary fights and the helplessness of being on call at a parent’s deathbed. It offers one of the deepest understandings of a death scene you may experience on a live stage, and interpretations of iconic figures such as Bevan, Churchill and Chamberlain to knock your socks off.
Now in her sixties and not afraid to take hold of the world with both hands, Elzabe Zietsman’s revue comprises a mêlée of songs which she has penned and others she has moulded to fit South Africa’s unique levels of hypocrisy, hatred and hope, sometimes all in the same breath.
The narrative of ‘A Streetcar’ is rich with tropes central to the South African taxi industry, and its complex social and economic history. Listen to the discourse. Taxiology in South Africa is a real thing, about spicy micro-narratives and social protocol as well as about God, the universe and everything.
In this show, Thamm riffs on about the Guptas’ exposure and the all-seeing eyes of DA leader, Helen Zille. She talks a million miles a second of the insane outcomes of everything from Covid legislation to stolen billions of Rands and whistle-blowers, who have shaped (and saved) this country’s face.
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