Top 10 productions of 2019
KROTOA, EVA VAN DE KAAP
A moving testimonial with superb musical accompaniment, presented by Artscape in association with Dutch theatre collective, the Volksoperahuis. A story within a story, it’s about a Dutch actor and singer (Kees Scholten) and a South African actress (Bianca Flanders), who meet on the film set of Krotoa,
Eva van de Kaap. Kees in turn plays Jan van Riebeeck and Flander plays the famous Krotoa, the young Khoi girl taken into Van Riebeeck’s household, who went on to become a key negotiator and translator between the Dutch and the local people at a young age.
KINKY BOOTS
Glitzy and relevant, this big and beautiful show affirms in every which way that being different is okay. Charlie Price reluctantly inherits his dad’s shoe factory. Trying to save the family business, he finds inspiration in Lola, a fabulous entertainer in need of some sturdy stilettos. Hugely entertaining.
KUNENE AND THE KING
Two acting greats – John Kani and Anthony Sher – in a magnificently acted and superbly directed play about the effects of apartheid 25 years into democracy through the relationship of two elderly men – one white, one black. Kani stars as Lunga Kunene, a headstrong male nurse contracted to care for cantankerous actor Jack Morris, played by Sir Antony Sher.
THE SNOW GOOSE
An exquisitely rendered and whimsical evocation of Paul Gallico’s classic book, it’s set around a small British village on the marshes of Essex, close to Dunkirk and was staged during the anniversary month of the WW2 Dunkirk evacuation. A timeless gem...
CONFESSIONS OF A MORMON BOY
Steven Fales bares his soul in a mix of humour and angst-ridden memory to spill out his tale of wrestling his sexual identity. It may sound like a fairly standard scenario in these gender-fluid days, but more than 20 years ago it was not.
FLORENCE AND WINE IN THE WILDERNESS
Theatre-maker and director, Nwabisa Plaatjie brought to life two gems of plays by American playwright, Alice Childress, as part of the Baxter’s Women’s Month. This playwright made history as the only African American woman to have written, produced and published plays for four decade. Both plays dealt with the struggle to get past racism, poverty and gender politics.
KAMPHOER
Sandra Prinsloo’s brilliant performance is unforgettable in this gut-wrenching one woman show about a woman who is left for dead after being raped by two British officers in a Boer War concentration camp. Years later she confronts one of her rapists in a British hospital during World War 1. The play is one hour of what can simply be described as a tour de force...
DANGER IN THE DARK
Excellent high-energy musical about the difficult subjects of drugs and gender discrimination on the
Cape Flats. A reworking of the hit musical Poison, which Kramer and the legendary late Taliep Petersen wrote in the ’90s. Stunning costumes, dance, choreography, acting, singing and that magical “gees” to get across an all to common story that needs to be told.
GLASS MENAGERIE
Marcel Meyer’s excellent rendition of a Tennessee William’s classic yet again highlights the fact that one must allow one’s true self to shine no matter what. About a dysfunctional mother-led family into whose midst comes a “gentleman caller”. With a cast as hugely talented as Fiona Ramsay, Jenny Stead, Matthew Baldwin and Meyer himself, one simply can’t go wrong in this haunting work.
THE ONE WHO SINGS
Freshlyground’s Zolani Mahola has proved that on her own she’s a formidable force to be reckoned with as she put on her first solo show, searing and hugely intimate. She related her life, telling the audience revealing stories and singing new compositions as well as old favourites, mostly accompanied with her talented playing on the guitar.