Penelope Youngleson's SILLAGE to Play Alexander Upstairs This Month

SILLAGE, the award-winning drama directed, written and designed by Penelope Youngleson and performed by Rebecca Makin-Taylor and Michele Belknap, will be presented by Rust Co-Operative at the Alexander Bar's Upstairs Theatre this February.

SILLAGE is the disquieting story of South African women and how their matriarchy sustains them - until they must pack up the family home. With cloying tensions heavy in the air, and lifetimes measured out in lost earrings, orphaned pen lids, and long-forgotten postcards, mother and daughter have to fit themselves into the (cardboard) boxes they've been avoiding their whole lives.

The production makes use of gestural language and physical ritual to bridge the silences between verbose characters desperate to be heard and unable to listen. It is Youngleson's first monolingual work since EXPECTANT, her Standard Bank Ovation Award-winning play about female whiteness in the new South Africa, also the last time she worked with Makin-Taylor.

SILLAGE re-examines some of the themes explored in that critically acclaimed play, which toured to the Afrovibes Festival in the Netherlands, The Market Theatre and various theatres and festivals in Cape Town, but locates the discomfort of South African identity and gender politics firmly in a domestic drama set in the garage of a family's house. It draws on recent events leading up to and during student protests and political parties' unrest, but circles back on the minutiae of the everyday in ways to which every South African can relate.

SILLAGE first played the Upstairs Theatre at Alexander Bar for a season last May, before travelling to the National Arts Festival in July, where it was awarded the Standard Bank Gold Ovation Award for the best production on the National Lottery Fringe. This was only the fifth Gold Ovation to be handed out since the inception of the prize, and the second to be awarded to a female theatre-maker. The production subsequently toured to the Hilton Arts Festival in September last year.

Penelope Youngleson is a theatre-maker, designer, writer, composer, stylist and educator working in Cape Town. She has won several awards with Philip Rademeyer and their company, Rust Co-Operative, and in her own capacity, including: the Best International Production at the Dublin Festival, Runner Up for Best International production at Amsterdam Fringe, panel selection at Afrovibes Festival in the Netherlands, two Standard Bank Ovation awards, three Silver Standard Bank Ovation awards, a Gold Standard Bank Ovation and a Fleur du Cap Theatre Award for Best New Director. Rademeyer and Youngleson were also nominated for a Best New South African Script Fleur du Cap Theatre Award in 2016. Her particular interest is South Africa-specific stories and has written seven scripts in the last three years, all original works about, for and in praise of people from this country. She is currently a Bertha Fellow at the UCT Graduate School of Business, pursuing an MPhil in Social Innovation. She was also named amongst the Mail and Guardian Top 200 Young People of 2016.

Rebecca Makin-Taylor graduated from the University of Cape Town with a degree in Theatre and Performance and a distinction in acting. Her theatre debut was in THE VERBALISTS, written and directed by Louis Viljoen. EXPECTANT, a one-woman show written and directed by Penny Youngleson, received a Standard Bank Ovation Award at the 2013 National Arts Festival, and had runs at the AfroVibes festival in Amsterdam and The Market Theatre in Johannesburg. LAST ROUNDS, a one-woman show, written and directed by Tara Notcutt, ran in both South Africa and Australia. In 2015, Makin-Taylor worked with international artist, James Webb, as the voice artist in his sound installation THIS IS MY VOICE, BUT THESE ARE NOT MY WORDS. In 2016, she performed at The Fugard Theatre in the Viljoen's award-winning play, THE KINGMAKERS, and in SILLAGE. She is a recipient of the Yvonne Banning Memorial Award for Voice.

Michele Belknap graduated from the University of Cape Town's Drama School in the 1970s and then worked at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg for some years before returning to the Western Cape and becoming involved in educational theatre programmes. She then worked in the field of corporate training, and subsequently ran an educational NGO for many years. She has remained active in both professional and amateur theatre as well as film work in Cape Town. Stage roles include the Woman in LAUGHING WILD, Barbara Phillips in THE SHADRACK AFFAIR, Mrs Erlynne in LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN, Lady Macbeth in MACBETH, Violet Weston in AUGUST OSAGE COUNTY, Olive Madison in THE ODD COUPLE and and Mme Pinchard in AN ABSOLUTE TURKEY.

SILLAGE runs from 20-25 February at the Alexander Bar's Upstairs Theatre at 19:00. Tickets are available from the Alexander Bar website and cost R80 if booked and prepaid online, while tickets will also be available at the door for R90. The production features mature content and language some viewers may find offensive. It has an age restriction for those under 16 years old. For telephone enquiries, call 021 300 1652. The Alexander Bar, Café and Theatre is situated at 76 Strand Street in the Cape Town city centre and can be followed on Facebook and Twitter.

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