David Fick - Page 6

The 52nd Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards will be presented tonight at the Artscape Theatre in Cape Town. With the local theatre industry counting down to the ceremony, BroadwayWorld presents a special feature that highlights the nominees and some of the discourse that has transpired since the nominations were released last month.

The kykNET Fiestas were presented at an ebullient ceremony at the Artscape Theatre Center on Thursday night. Broadcast live on kykNET, the evening was a suitably extravagant affair that honoured the best in Afrikaans theatre, classical music and visual arts. David Fick counts down his top ten highlights of the event.

David Fick reviews The Stephan Fourie Theatre Company production of RENT at the Artscape Arena, a production filled with passion - but which leaves a great deal to be desired. SPOILER ALERT: There is a spoiler about the plot of RENT in the first paragraph of this review.

SILLAGE, the award-winning drama directed, written and designed by Penelope Youngleson and performed by Rebecca Makin-Taylor and Michele Belknap, returns to the Alexander Bar's Upstairs Theatre this February. See the behind-the-scenes video featuring interviews with the cast below.

Following the South African premiere of Florian Zeller's THE FATHER last year, the same playwright's companion piece, THE MOTHER, made its bow last week at The Fugard Studio. David Fick reviews.

Cape Town was at its finest this past Sunday when the Fugard Theatre hosted a reception in their breathtaking rooftop bar to announce the programme of The 2017 Fugard Bioscope World Arts Cinema Season before a screening of The National Theatre's thrilling production of THE THREEPENNY OPERA.

It was no unlucky Friday the 13th for South Africa's theatre community when BroadwayWorld's Regional Managing Editor Christina Mancuso released the names of the of the winners of the 2016 BroadwayWorld South Africa Awards.

This return season of BAD JEWS comes hot on the heels of the announcement of "post-truth" as Oxford's word of the year, giving audiences a moment to pause and reflect on the way we handle our lives in a post-truth society and us to consider what we destroy in our quest to be right.

Louis Viljoen's OH BABY, I'M A WILD ONE is a character study of a first-year teacher trying to sift through the psychological debris that a confluence of key events has bulldozed into her life. It is theatre that offers some food for thought about how society constructs morality and how individuals seem geared to deconstruct and contravene those norms.

HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH at Gate69 not only celebrates its queerness but also reminds us that we have our own Hedwigs to celebrate and our own Berlin Walls to conquer. It is the perfect choice to open this stylish new venue in the Mother City.

Richard Kaplan's debut as a produced playwright with THE FINKELSTEINS ARE COMING FOR DINNER offers an evening of solid entertainment. For its pivotal love scene alone, it is worth going to see what is being cooked up for the Finkelsteins' visit.

DE-APART-HATE will mean a lot to everyone who is trying to engage with what is going on in our country at the moment. Because the mystery of what will rise once what must fall has fallen, what lies beyond decolonisation is what is at the heart of this piece, and Nyamza's recognition of that makes her a visionary.

HOLY CONTRACT ends with a brief but powerful statement that compels us to reflect on our personal, social, political or artistic narratives. Sometimes it is essential to remember that we can stop, be present and decide whether we want to swim upstream or not, and HOLY CONTRACT is a potent reminder of our power as individual human beings.

SONGS FOR KHWEZI is theatre that one hopes to see grow in its reach. It is theatre that says important things in an original way. It is theatre that speaks truths that women know and that men need to hear. It is theatre that can disrupt. It is theatre that can heal.

WOZA ALBERT! remains an incredibly powerful play. That it can withstand mediocre productions and still, more or less, manage to resonate with an audience is a testament to what Ngema, Mtwa and Simon achieved 35 years ago. When the real WOZA ALBERT! stands up, it takes no prisoners. It is a play that reminds us of the journey we have travelled, and the long way we still have to go.

TERMITE! TALL TALES FOR BIG PEOPLE is a dynamic performance piece in which two actors tell a trio contemporary tales that blend izinganekwane with physical theatre . Mentioning 'big people' in the title is a super tactic to attract the 'tween' audience to which this production will appeal most, although there are plenty of nods to local political parties and popular culture to keep their guardians satisfied.

LA RÊVE DU LUCIE brings children and their guardians together like few theatre pieces for young audiences manage to do. The play is a gentle and tender story about the power of our imaginations in helping us overcome our greatest challenges.

It is quite remarkable when contemporary theatre-makers succeed in taking on a classic work and reinventing it so that it resonates within the context of our particular space and time. DANGLED is theatrical savant Louis Viljoen's adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's 1835 short story, 'Diary of a Madman', written as a performance piece for Rob van Vuuren. The result? Genius in action.

THE GRUFFALO seems to have done brisk business at the Cape Town Fringe and is sure to have a life on South African stages beyond this initial engagement, with an isiXhosa version already lined up for next year. It will be fascinating to see how this process of translation plays out as the next entry into this franchise's commodities is developed.

POLICE COPS is pastiche on a grand scale, taking the buddy cop genre, putting a self-aware spin on it and playing tropes that were once taken extremely seriously to the very edge of sheer lunacy. The results are hilarious, as though THE MOD SQUAD were taking on IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT in the WILD WILD WEST at RUSH HOUR.