Four takes
Mark Sage, theatre manager, Pieter Toerien Productions After two years of Netflix and isolation, SA audiences are hungry for live theatre. Nothing beats its energy. We reopened in October 2021 at 50% capacity, which was a struggle because it limited the shows we could put on. Thankfully, the return to 100% in June this year has meant we can play to bigger houses, employ more performers and stage bigger productions. Our audience numbers have been growing steadily as people get used to going out again. It will take a while to reach pre-Covid numbers, but theatre always finds a way to survive. Our magicmakers – artists, creators, producers — have been to hell and back over the past two years. Audiences coming back will warm the hearts of everyone in our industry and hopefully ignite a new wave of creative energy.
Allison Foat, theatre publicist, Diva PR
While theatres are back to 100% audience capacity, not everyone has rushed back. Smaller venues seem to be achieving sell-out status from opening night onwards; bigger venues have been slightly slower. We have definitely turned the corner as theatregoers relax more and we see better box-office figures earlier into a production, which is encouraging and a relief. Full houses are crucial in terms of making bank and being able to keep the live theatre wheel turning.
Marlene le Roux, CEO of Artscape Theatre
It is such joy to once again breathe life into buildings like theatres, for patrons to make these places relevant, for artists to be on stage to perform to a live audience. It is necessary for the heart and soul, but also for professionals to practise their art to full houses again. Yes, we missed the theatre. Patrons cried when they entered the building again. But we want to ask people to buy tickets to see live performances again so we can keep theatre alive in SA, so artists can have work again, so the theatre can be there for the next generation. Theatres are the soul of a nation. Artists are life and life is art. Barbara Erasmus, reader’s letter
I watched two plays in Cape Town recently. Leopoldstadt, Tom Stoppard’s latest, played to a full house at Cinema Nouveau one Sunday [filmed live on stage in London’s West End]. But there were only six of us in the audience one evening for Country Duty, one of four new plays by local legend Mike van Graan at the Fugard [now District Six Homecoming Centre]. South African theatre-lovers are missing out. Why don’t we watch plays written by South Africans about local issues? When the six of us — strangers — filed out, we found
Van Graan in the foyer chatting to star Khutjo Green, who’d just come off stage. The theatre is short-staffed. There’s no box office but there is a bar so we bought a bottle of wine and sat down to discuss the challenges of trying to keep theatre alive. Van Graan’s idea is portable plays, small-scale productions that can be produced with minimal cast and stage requirements, thus staged in a variety of venues. If audiences can’t drive to see the plays, take the plays to them. Success is almost guaranteed, considering the quality of the actors and directors such as Fiona Ramsay, Daniel Richards and Rob van Vuuren.
All that’s missing to complete the jigsaw is the audience.