Category: Theatre

To jol like no one’s watching

FORTY-ONE YEARS AGO, Paul Slabolepszy’s play Saturday Night at the Palace rocked the theatre-going sensibilities of South Africa. This was art so close to the mirror that it reeked and terrified. It’s enjoying a season currently at the Joburg Theatre, under the direction of Albert Maritz and it […]

How to chase thrills

MONEY IS A strange thing. It’s like energy. You don’t have it? Its value changes. You do? Again, it’s something different that speaks to legacy and hope, luxury and a whole range of nice-to-haves. Not everyone might agree with this if you presented them with pocketsful of cash […]

What I put into this bikini

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 […]

Forever young

THERE’S NOTHING QUITE like celebrating your birthday with a lovely friend. This is what the central character in The Red Balloon, played by Craig Morris, discovers, as he takes you on a magical madcap journey through a whole gamut of emotions, armed with simple tools and complex skills. […]

No bread? Eat cake!

VERY OCCASIONALLY, YOU feel that sense of privilege in the presence of an artwork that brings tears and goosebumps. From the very first roll of the snare drum with the thunder of a jembe and a dun-dun behind it, Sibikwa’s 1789 will have you transfixed. It’s immersion theatre […]

Laugh: Things could be kakker

WITH HIS DISTINCTIVE white streak down the middle of his verdant Afro, his rubbery smile and his straight talk and complicated yarns, Marc Lottering is truly one of South Africa’s greatest treasures. His show, So I wrote that musical is performing at the Hilton Arts Festival in Pietermaritzburg, […]

Things to make Yia-Yia gasp

COSTA CARASTRAVRAKIS HAS everything. From a name that gets the tongues of non-Greeks in knots before they even try to say it, to a sexual identity that gets the gossipy tables of flashy Greek mommies waiting for school to be out fiercely aflutter, to a mother with legendary […]

Ladies who bounce back

THE VETERAN BRITISH actress Miriam Margolyes describes the idea of doing a one-woman show as “lonely and frightening”, in her autobiography, This Much is True. When you see Serena Steinhauer emerge on stage in a flurry of words and wrap herself in the identity of three iconic women […]