Straight off the stages from the National Arts Festival, Wits Theatre plays host to new and exciting shows as part of the 969 Festival, which runs from tomorrow.
It includes everything from theatre, music and poetry, with at least 16 productions to intrigue theatre lovers. Sex, death, suffering, anti-Semitism, poverty, despair, society, history – no subject is taboo.
Now in its 12th instalment, this festival is for those who did not make the 969km trek to the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, and attempts to bring some hot goods from the Eastern Cape event to Braamfontein.
Gita Pather, the director of Wits Theatre, is upbeat about the 969 Festival and said: “The festival provides a fascinating snapshot into our cultural landscape and specifically the exciting work being staged by theatre makers. I am really proud of this year’s programme; a combination of international and South African work, because it showcases a diverse range of productions and styles of performance.”
The line-up includes Singarevva and the Palace by well-known Indian theatre and TV artist, Laxmi Chandrashekar, a solo theatre adaptation of a novel by Dr C Kambara, and a powerful depiction of the suffering of women in feudal India.
Other international shows include the hilariously heartbreaking off-Broadway play, Ndebele Funeral, which brings to stage the music, dirt, and dreams of modern Soweto. Alon Nashman, a renowned Canadian actor, plays two characters in Kafka and Son and Hirsch. The first examines the complex relation between Kafka and his father, while Hirsch depicts the colourful life and character of John Hirsch, an orphan of the Holocaust who emigrated to Canada and turned the tragedy of his childhood into live art.
Kafka’s Ape, based on A Report To An Academy, is an intriguing interrogation on identity and what it means to be human. Directed by Phala O Phala, it stars Tony Miyambo as Red Peter, who also happens to play a grief-stricken son attempting to come to terms with his father’s death in Cenotaph of Dan wa Moriri. Father Father Father is a zany clack comedy about three sisters locked in a basement awaiting their father. The question, though, is, is the waiting one of anticipation or dread? Toni Morkel, Joni Barnard and Roberto Pombo play the sisters.
Pombo is Jemma Kahn’s irreverent side- kick in We Didn’t Come To Hell For The Croissants: 7 Deadly New Stories For Consenting Adults, the eagerly anticipated sequel to the international cult hit, The Epicene Butcher, with stories that seduce the sinless and astonish the immoral.
A completely different take on identity and what it means to be a man is made via the unique visions of three exceptional directors – Quintin Wils, Sylvaine Strike and Megan Wilson – in Simply Sapiens, a play in three acts performed by Craig Morris and Greg Melvill-Smith. Young Wils has two other shows at the festival: Smaarties with Jannes Erasmus as a man who finds himself in a psychiatric ward after the death of his parents and aLEXA, literally a “mobile thriller” with TV actors Carina Nel (Generations) and Vianney Farmer (Crave). Audience members get into a car with “Alexa” and into a totally immersive theatre experience.
Two girls going nowhere sitting on the side of a road is the setting for Actress and Girl, a whimsical and dark story about the kindness and cruelty of strangers.
Boegoespruit Ext 25 by third- and fourth-year Wits School of Arts performance students focuses on people living in a coloured township somewhere, marginalised for different reasons and all hoping that winning a local talent show will rescue them from the poverty of their lives. Inspired by Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions, Crossing, directed by Mncedisi Shabangu, explores the subject of death in the stories of five women. And in Dead Yellow Sands, the audience will meet ghosts from Graham Weir’s past, coming face-to-face with a South Africa that might be fading, but lingers on in corners and alleys and institutions we all know well.
To round off a versatile programme, Colombian Carlos Fernando Balanta showcases the complex cultural rhythms of his native country through percussion instruments, voice and drums. The performance, called Baterimba, has excited audiences all over the world.
For poetry lovers, a diverse selection of poetry tastes ranging from slam poetry to prose and free verse will be on offer under the Poetry Overload banner.
Various lunch-time performances have been scheduled from July 20 to 24 at 1.15pm to give students of drama, theatre and performance an opportunity to watch some of the best from the National Arts Festival. The shows are Hirsch (at the Amphitheatre on July 20), Singarevva and the Palace (at the Downstairs Theatre on July 20), Kafka and Son (at the Downstairs Theatre on July 21), We Didn’t Come To Hell for the Croissants: 7 Deadly Sins, 7 writers and 7 new stories (at the Downstairs Theatre on July 22) and Ndebele Funeral (at the Downstairs Theatre on July 23).
All tickets are R30 and R25 for bookings of 10 and more.
For block bookings, contact [email protected] or call 011 717 1376.
For more information, visit http://www.wits.ac.za/witstheatre. To buy tickets, go to www.webtickets.co.za.
Tonight Reporter