Banishing baby's blues
Apr 22, 2009
When last we spoke, just a few weeks before the launch of the NewSpace Theatre in November 2008, Fred Abrahamse talked about the project being his new baby. How quickly the blighters grow in just four months.
"The toddler is healthy, but there has been no money for nappies," Abrahamse laughs.
A messy metaphor, perhaps, but an apt one.
It's been tough for theatre everywhere. In times of economic strife, the leisure industry is the first to suffer.
The NewSpace Theatre opened with the critically-lauded production of Stephen Sondheim's Assassins, but had to close the show early due to poor attendance.
Abrahamse was initially recruited as artistic director, but is now employed on a freelance basis.
There have been rumours of tensions with the owners of the building, hiccups with wages and a number of other problems.
"I can't really go into that right now, but it's fair to say that it's been a difficult few months. I hate to use the CC word, the dreaded credit crunch, but we can't pretend it's not there. The truth is that we opened at the most inopportune time.
"With the benefit of hindsight we would have thought twice about the timing. It's been difficult isolating the issues under such economic pressure."
After some disappointing houses, the theatre has staged more commercially-appealing productions such as the recent Killer Queen.
The NewSpace is staging a number of productions from producer Colin Law's Afro-Asia events, including Noel Coward's Private Lives, directed by Abrahamse himself.
"Every theatre practitioner wants to do a Noel Coward play," he says. "So many young actors and drama students study classic texts, but don't often get to perform them. But there should always be space for classic stories.
"The play is enormously relevant. Anyone who's ever been in a messy relationship - and those who haven't - will be able to relate."
Private Lives is a wickedly funny comedy of manners set in the 1930s that tells the story of four people with deviously interwoven love lives.
It remains a standard of the repertory and is one of the most performed plays in the English-speaking world.
Several of the greatest stars of stage and screen have played the lead characters Elyot and Amanda, including Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Joan Collins, Alan Rickman and Coward himself.
Abrahamse's production stars Erica Wessels, Marcel Meyer and young stars Anelisa Phewa and Namhla Tshuka.
"The theatre is starting to find its audience. Sure, it's tough, but people needn't worry about the theatre. We have regulars coming in. The restaurants downstairs are filling up. The theatre is evolving and assuming an identity. There is definitely growth. Come and see for yourself," he smiles.