Award-Winning Team to Stage Poetic Exploration of History and Memory in RED ALOES at the Magnet Theatre

An award-winning team will present the premiere of RED ALOES, an exciting new production at the Magnet Theatre this August. Written and directed by Themba Stewart, RED ALOES melds poetic text with image-based language to explore a rarely documented time in South Africa's history.

RED ALOES follows a young man who discovers a box containing an assortment of letters, police reports, statements and murder diaries that relate to his mother's death in 1993. He digs through the paper to find evidence of a person he once knew. When a dormant memory surfaces, he is faced with the question of whether to continue and potentially remember something buried deep or to stop. Once known, it is hard to forget.

Drawn from the writer's life experiences as a child, RED ALOES aims to explore what it means to be caught in the wake of political violence in the early 1990s. But reawakening the social amnesia connected to "those murky in-between times, in a forgotten part of the country" exposes memories that are buried in the shadows of red aloes. Does the absence of a memory mean we have overcome the trauma connected to it? Is it worth tarnishing our memories with facts that have long been forgotten? Should memories like these be left untouched?

RED ALOES is performed by Richard September (ROOIVALK, RONDOMSKRIK) and Iman Isaacs (NO FUN CTION ALL ANGUAGE, FULL STOPS ON YOUR FACE) who collaborated with Stewart to devise the production. September and Isaacs have been working together for seven years, in productions such as Penelope Youngleson's NAT and their own THE RABBLE, forging a strong connection as performers and theatre-makers. In this production, they bring together their talents to create a world that evokes the senses in the telling of a compelling story.

RED ALOES has been brewing for many years, fed by the many creative processes in which Stewart, whose credits include SUNFLOWER EYES and IMPERFECT DRAFT 1, has been involved. Finally, with generous support from the National Arts Council and two dedicated performers, the show has found its space to be realised. The production is managed by Ryno Keet, who has collaborated on the set and lighting design with Stewart himself and Puleng Stewart, with creative input from Juanita Ferreira. Music for the production has been created by composer and sound designer Jannous Aukema.

Red Aloes will run on Wednesdays through Saturdays at the Magnet Theatre in Observatory, Cape Town, from 4 - 12 August at 20:00. Tickets cost R70 on Wednesdays and R90 on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Ticket for students and pensioners cost R60, and a block booking rate of R50 per person is available. Tickets can be booked at Webtickets or by contacting Themba Stewart by email or on 0767816306. There is ample parking available next to the theatre.

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