Theatre gig guide
DRAMA TO DIE FOR: FROM FRENCH SHAKESPEARE TO AFRICA’S REGGAE PIONEER
Tales that take you to different worlds and times.
Joburg Theatre is presenting Molière’s Tartuffe, a French story exploring the way in which people are easily manipulated by symbols of power and honeyed words, opening on June 1.
Tartuffe is one of the “French Shakespeare’s” most famous works. Acclaimed award-winning theatre director Sylvaine Strike and the Fortune Cookie Theatre Company will tour South Africa with Molière’s chef d’oeuvre to: Soweto; Durban; Cape Town; and Johannesburg. There will also be a series of conferences by a French academic specialising in theatre who will share insights into the historical context of Molière’s work and the evolution of theatre from those times.
South African documentarists Joëlle Chesselet and Lloyd Ross will shoot a documentary on the theatre production.
The show opens at 8pm on June 1 at The Fringe at Joburg Theatre.
MUSICAL CELEBRATES AFRICAN REGGAE PIONEER
Pioneer of reggae music in Africa, Carlos Djedje, will be honoured on home soil in June when the Tshwane University of Technology’s department of performing arts stages a musical loosely based on the artist’s life. The musical, King Inna De Jungle (the title of one of Djedje’s songs) will be directed by lecturer Rostislava Pashkevitch, who also co-wrote the musical with actor and playwright Patrick Sanku Bokaba.
King Inna De Jungle intertwines three genres, African conscious reggae, house music and original compositions. The production features 65 musical theatre students and a live band. Also on the creative team is dancer and choreographer Paul Modjadji. He is assisted by Bryan Mtsweni, a fourth-year musical theatre student. Musical direction is by Carlos and Josef Moshidi, leader of the Carlos Djedje band, The Protectors. The set is designed by Anre Fourie and the costumes are the work of Motshidisi Manyeneng.
BETRAYAL BY HAROLD PINTER
Daphne Kuhn will present Betrayal, written in 1978 by famous English playwright Harold Pinter, on June 6 at the Auto & General Theatre on the Square.
It runs until July 1 and has an exciting local cast, which includes Antony Coleman (recent winner of the SA Film and TV award for best actor) as the husband, Robert; Carly Graeme is Emma; film and TV actor Tom Fairfoot plays Jerry; and Jose Domingos is the waiter.
The play is regarded as Pinter’s finest dramatic work.
It has won several major awards, including the Olivier Award for best new play and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award.
It’s a deceptively simple, poignant, and, at times, funny play about a love triangle. It examines the decline of a marriage, starting from the point when Jerry initiates an affair with his best friend’s wife, Emma.
The play backtracks nine years to when the affair first began. As the years spin backwards, a complex web of secrets about the trio emerges, calling into question the nature of their intimacy, as friends, as partners, as spouses.
The play examines relationships, love, lust and time, poetically exploring the rift between memory and reality.
Inspired by Pinter’s own clandestine extramarital affair, the plot of Betrayal integrates different permutations of betrayal. It also shows that the capacity for love itself is sometimes based on betraying not only other loved ones, but even ourselves.