Come to the theatre fantastic
National Arts Festival executive producer Ashraf Johaardien gives his top-five picks for theatre on the Main:
• THE BORROW PIT by 2018 Standard Bank Young Artist for Theatre Jemma Kahn is a play about 20th-century men told by a 21st-century woman. Through the lens of kamishibai, an ancient Japanese storytelling medium, Kahn tells the story of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, two of Britain’s most influential artists. Each had a muse who helped them on their way to prodigious fame but it did not end so well for the muses.
• MONSIEUR IBRAHIM EN DIE BLOMME VAN DIE KORAN is presented by Kunste Onbeperk and is performed by the inimitable Dawid Minnaar with direction by Phillip Rademeyer. Set in the Jewish quarter of Paris in the ’60s, a boy, Momo, finds an unlikely friend in a lonely Muslim shop owner, Monsieur Ibrahim. When Momo’s father – an aggressive man who neglects his son – disappears and is found dead, Ibrahim takes him in and a moving story unfolds, showing how the most important lessons about life and death are learnt when we least expect it.
• GONE NATIVE: The Life and Times of Regina Brooks presented by Joburg City Theatres with music by Hugh Masekela and direction by Makhaola Ndebele. Brooks, one of South African history’s most controversial figures, defied apartheid laws – being a white woman who had several relationships with black men
when interracial relationships were deemed immoral.
• THEATRE IN THE BACKYARD is a concept pioneered by Cape Town theatre director Mhlanguli George and is the outcome of a radical shift in focus from trying to get new works into standard theatres, to taking those works into people’s backyards. Each story is inspired by the unique traits of each backyard and what elements strike the creator.
• THE INCIDENT, by Swedish playwright Joakim Daun, is co-produced by UJ Arts & Culture as part of their all-new play development platform, STAGED, and is made possible with support from the Swedish embassy. Newcomer Elizabeth Zaza Muchemwa directs a group of theatre-makers from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Sweden and the US who are interested in telling untold stories and presenting performances that question mainstream norms in our society.