In ‘Stinkhout’, Frank Opperman and Wilhelm van der Walt take you flawlessly through three generations of white South African men. Hands-on emotion is hard. It’s embarrassing. Shame-worthy. They’ve been definitively schooled by defining moments of war and loss. Mental illness flows through the family’s blood. Taboo must be kept taboo.
SHE SAID, HE said and the vulnerable young woman servant without a voice hasn’t a chance in a context where she can be labelled one thing and hung for it. Push anyone far and ruthlessly enough with the threat of their worst fears at the price of their […]
PLACE THEATRE DIRECTOR Yaël Farber and Shakepeare’s Macbeth on the same page and you may, in your mind’s eye and heart, picture a bloodbath of gargantuan and subtle proportions, replete with screams of agony and wails of horror. You won’t be completely wrong. Indeed, in Farber’s direction of […]
“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 […]
RADIO DRAMA REVIEW: DIE NAG VAN LEGIO. WHEN YOU GET so immersed into a radio play that you feel at once transfixed and terrified to your very core, you know that you are in the presence of real greatness — from the perspectives of writing, directing and performing. […]
REVIEW: AFRIKAANS RADIO DRAMA: DIE HEKS THE 15TH CENTURY and its misogyny in Europe is legend. Iconic Afrikaans writer C Louis Leipoldt takes on the mantle worn by Umberto Eco, John Whiting and Arthur Miller in their contemplation of the phenomenon of witch burning, in a magnificent piece […]
South African storytelling has rich veins of possibility that draw not only from farm novel traditions, but also the criss-crossing of many cultures and biases that soils its reputation, but makes for good meaty yarns. This is what you will find in Victor Gordon’s sterling work Brothers, an […]
THE NAUSEATING CLASH of religious dogmaticism and sexualities which contradict hetero-norms is not something new. If you look at the issue of sexuality more broadly and infuse it with an historical glance at the culture and persecution of so-called witches, it simmers and seethes there too. Young playwright […]
AN EXPLORER GETS a lot more than he bargained for, in Martyn Le Roux’s debut Afrikaans-language horror film which released on Vimeo last Friday. It’s a viable model for storytelling and the terror of the tale can be as close as your computer screen, with live-streaming. Die Pelsloper […]
RUPTURING AUDIENCES FOR over 130 years, the story of a privileged young woman and her magnetic attraction to a young man employed as her father’s driver, is back on the international boards, as relevant, bloody and direct as ever. Julie, penned by Polly Stenham, draws from the Strindberg […]
ansunecilliers
beckkglass
Chester Miggels
Gillian Rennie
elizhanduvenhage
erinventer02
Geoff Sifrin
godukazinobulali
henricopg
huibrechtdehart
isabeausophiajoubert
jessicajoubert
Kapisha Ramraj
kaylamullerr
matthewvanderwalt
meereieliefde
olgalouiselemmer
Peta Kaplan
Robyn Sassen
shanelschoombee
thembanhlapoart
Willem Pieter
zainabchoonara
Recent Comments