2014 South African Theatre Retrospectives: The Plays - Part 3

It is the last day of 2014 and this final look at "six of the best" plays to appear on South African stages finishes up BroadwayWorld's review of the past year's theatre. Previous columns this year have looked at a selection of some of the plays, musicals, operas and dance productions that have appeared in major venues like the Market Theatre, the Fugard Theatre, the Artscape Theatre Centre, The Joburg Theatre and the Baxter Theatre, in fringe venues like the Rosebank Theatre, the Galloway Theatre and the Alexander Bar and Café's Upstairs Theatre and at festivals like the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival and the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. Here are half a dozen more of the plays that lit up local stages during 2014.

The first two selections of the final "six of the best" both come with endorsements from Robin Malan, the owner-manager of Junkets Publisher, specialising in new South African plays. The first is FISHERS OF HOPE (TAWARET), which was performed at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, after which it completed a run at the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town. Dealing with the specific trials and tribulations of the fishing community in Kenya, the play was dealt with the shift in Africa from socio-political colonialism to socio-economic colonialism - a theme that holds a great deal of relevance in South Africa. 'An elegiac atmosphere hangs over this piece, a gentle despair,' Malan said of FISHERS OF HOPE (TAWARET). He continued: 'When she does these pieces, Lara Foot does them so well! Everything coheres. I especially admired all-but-wordless Shaun Oelf, performing the most intricate and beautiful choreography put on him by Grant van Ster.' After a season that had felt a little thin on the ground at the Baxter, the July opening of FISHERS OF HOPE (TAWARET) represented something of a turning point for the Baxter, one that launched a series of productions that reflect the theatre's identity as a home for progressive South African theatre.

Malan's second pick was CHOMI, written by Pfarelo Nemakonde, directed by Motlatji Ditodi and designed by Alfred Rietmann: 'I played a part in publishing this play and bringing it to Artscape's attention, so I was thrilled when they got new Big-Talent Motlatji Ditodi to direct it. A real toast to (surely our first) full black gay South African play!' Set in Johannesburg CHOMI is the story of four openly gay black men. When their group experiences a tragedy, each is forced to face his inner demons. Audiences praised the piece for the balance it struck, dealing with provocative issues in an incredibly entertaining fashion. The cast included Mandisi Sindo, Anele Situlweni, Yanga Mkhonto, Thabang Sidloyi, Sipho Mahlatshana and Robert Haxton. Hopefully, the play will have a long life outside of its production as part of the Artscape's annual Spring Drama Season.

Wynne Bredenkamp's SALT enjoyed two runs, the first at the National Arts Festival and the second at the inaugural Cape Town Fringe. Blurring the boundaries between theatrical reality, imagination, schizophrenia and delusion, the play was framed by the testimony given by a doctor about a patient he revived after she had been lying in a hazy fog of medication for several years. Aya, the patient, lives in a world of multiple realities, one in her psychiatric ward and one at the bottom of the sea, where she interacts with her otherwise invisible brother, Raiyu. As Aya learns to trust Thomas, she begins to reveal what happened in her past and what brought her to this psychiatric ward in the first place. Along with cast members Emma Kotze, Daniel Richards and David Viviers, Bredenkamp created the kind of theatrical experience that revealed one to oneself, pushing one to rediscover things about the hidden truths of one's own existence. SALT was a haunting journey that lived in the mind and the heart for some time after the lights faded to black on the final images of the play.

A second play dealing with schizophrenia also played South African stages, at the State Theatre and Alexander Bar and Café's Upstairs Theatre respectively. In SALT, schizophrenia became a symbol for abandoned realities as competing narratives clashed within Aya's mind. In SMAARTIES, performance became a metaphor for schizophrenia. Everything in Jannes Erasmus's script to Quintin Wils's design and direction and Jaco Jansen van Rensburg's videography calculated to a embody a single character's psychosis. Erasmus also performed the piece of solo theatre, which saw its protagonist Mr Lotz delving into his memory to establish the facts of what led to the death of both his parents. Responding to the voices of his parents and a surviving younger sister who desperately needs his care, Mr Lotz violently reassembles his personal history. The ambiguous collage of English and Afrikaans, past and present, truth and interpretation, and imagination and reality was framed in performance as an experience of observed behaviour, a spin-off of the 1990s "in-yer-face" theatre movement.

Our final two spots in this retrospective are saved for theatre pieces created to resonate with younger audiences, one with teenagers and one with 3 - 7-year-olds. Some might be tempted to classify EMOTIONAL CREATURE as a musical owing to the prominent score created for the piece by Charl-Johan Lingenfelder, but it was really a play with songs. Created by Eve Ensler, EMOTIONAL CREATURE aimed to explore the secret lives of teenage girls around the world and originally appeared in print as a collection of monologues. The play covered a vast range of issues in its 90-minute running time, including child slavery, prostitution, plastic surgery, anorexia, teenage pregnancy and genital mutilation. Director Jo Bonney and choreographer David Gouldie coaxed vibrant performances from Barileng Malebye, Zakeeya Patel, Lara Lipschitz, Karabo Tshikube, Ratanang Mogotsi and Vuyelwa Maluleke, creating a piece of theatre that was a must-see for every teenage girl, every person raising a teenage girl and every person teaching a teenage girl. Brilliantly shaped for its target market, EMOTIONAL CREATURE was a conversation starter, an experience that aimed to validate the voices of the teenage girls and which prompts them to speak up and change the world. EMOTIONAL CREATURE played the Market Theatre Laboratory and the Baxter Theatre's Flipside venue.

TREE / BOOM / UMTHI was presented by Magnet Theatre, developed by its director, Jennie Reznek, in collaboration with the Magnet Theatre trainees. Casting aside the popular fairy tale format that characterises a great deal of children's theatre, TREE / BOOM / UMTHI chose instead to engage its audiences with stories and images plucked from the world that surrounds them. The 30-minute narrative introduced a hungry child who planted a seed in the ground. As the tree grew, the company of four actors let the audience in on secrets about day and night, the seasons and animals that interact with trees in the natural world. This was followed by a quarter hour of facilitated interaction between the cast and their young wards, each of whom was presented with a full colour book that retells the story in English, Afrikaans and isiXhosa alongside beautiful full colour illustrations by Julia Anastasopoulos. Thulisa Mayalo, Sivuyile Dunjwa, Sisispho Mbopa and Lubabalo Nontwana brought this joyful and enchanting play to life, making for a perfect introduction to the theatre as well as a stimulating way to learn some of the fundamental principles of the natural world.

With 2015 knocking on the door, this brings BroadwayWorld South Africa's retrospective series on the theatre of 2014 to a close. Here's to a year of diverse and compelling theatre! Help to make the next year a brilliant one on our local stages and go see a show!