David Fick - Page 4

HOLY CONTRACT ends with a brief but powerful statement that compels us to reflect on our personal, social, political or artistic narratives. Sometimes it is essential to remember that we can stop, be present and decide whether we want to swim upstream or not, and HOLY CONTRACT is a potent reminder of our power as individual human beings.

SONGS FOR KHWEZI is theatre that one hopes to see grow in its reach. It is theatre that says important things in an original way. It is theatre that speaks truths that women know and that men need to hear. It is theatre that can disrupt. It is theatre that can heal.

WOZA ALBERT! remains an incredibly powerful play. That it can withstand mediocre productions and still, more or less, manage to resonate with an audience is a testament to what Ngema, Mtwa and Simon achieved 35 years ago. When the real WOZA ALBERT! stands up, it takes no prisoners. It is a play that reminds us of the journey we have travelled, and the long way we still have to go.

TERMITE! TALL TALES FOR BIG PEOPLE is a dynamic performance piece in which two actors tell a trio contemporary tales that blend izinganekwane with physical theatre . Mentioning 'big people' in the title is a super tactic to attract the 'tween' audience to which this production will appeal most, although there are plenty of nods to local political parties and popular culture to keep their guardians satisfied.

LA RÊVE DU LUCIE brings children and their guardians together like few theatre pieces for young audiences manage to do. The play is a gentle and tender story about the power of our imaginations in helping us overcome our greatest challenges.

It is quite remarkable when contemporary theatre-makers succeed in taking on a classic work and reinventing it so that it resonates within the context of our particular space and time. DANGLED is theatrical savant Louis Viljoen's adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's 1835 short story, 'Diary of a Madman', written as a performance piece for Rob van Vuuren. The result? Genius in action.

THE GRUFFALO seems to have done brisk business at the Cape Town Fringe and is sure to have a life on South African stages beyond this initial engagement, with an isiXhosa version already lined up for next year. It will be fascinating to see how this process of translation plays out as the next entry into this franchise's commodities is developed.

POLICE COPS is pastiche on a grand scale, taking the buddy cop genre, putting a self-aware spin on it and playing tropes that were once taken extremely seriously to the very edge of sheer lunacy. The results are hilarious, as though THE MOD SQUAD were taking on IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT in the WILD WILD WEST at RUSH HOUR.

The way that Ryan Napier tells the story of DEATH OF A CLOWN, through a solo live performance piece, prompts the question of whether this format and medium is the best way to tell this story, and the stalemate it reaches as an extended theatrical presentation is wrapped up in the answer.

The discrimination against girls and young women when it comes to their education remains a pervasive issue in contemporary society. WAIT, currently playing at the Cape Town Fringe, focuses on just two of these: the priority of educating boys over girls and the marrying off of girls and young women for capital gain.

Odysseus Finn is epic. An hour with band members David van Witt, Michael McQuilken and Peterre Bourgeoise offers fire, absolution and transcendence. This is one of the highlights of the 2016 Cape Town Fringe.

Writer-director Koleka Putuma's assemblage of ideas and motifs in WOZA SARAFINA! is constructed within the context of the #RhodesMustFall movement and is informed by the ideologies that underpin that movement. While it speaks many truths, the play never finds a way to deliver more than just "the feels".

Dealing with the concepts of technological singularity and transhumanism, Adina and Michael Verson-McQuilken's MACHINE MAKES MAN navigates its way through the traditions of science fiction, ultimately emerging as a poignant reflection on the nature of humanity, with some broadly comic entertainment along the way.

The Fugard Theatre's production of CLYBOURNE PARK arrives at a time when South Africa is caught up in Archibald MacLeish's idea of 'the play without the play,' a world in which the gentrification trend and the problems caused by white privilege denialism intersect.

There is a meme making the rounds on Facebook at the moment. Above an image of the cast of the television series, FRIENDS, a caption reads: 'This documentary of White Privilege is kinda long and hard to watch, but DAMN. Really lays it all out there.' This revival of I LOVE YOU, YOU'RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE offers the musical theatre equivalent of that perception.

ANGELS ON HORSEBACK: RELOADED is a revival of a successful cabaret first devised by Fiona du Plooy - who directs this reboot - and Candice D'Arcy in 2007. Daneel van der Walt and Alicia McCormick saddle up for a wild ride through a series of original songs, covers and parodies, some crazy banter and even a line dance.

Theatre can bring people to the threshold of revelation; theatre can also engender revolution. NIQABI NINJA achieves the former, but its limited theatricality presents it from going further. Its essential commentary outlined, NIQABI NINJA needs now to amplify, unapologetically, what it has to say.

Lara Foot's latest play, THE INCONVENIENCE OF WINGS, has been seven years in the making. Since Foot started dreaming up this startling, intimate tale about the challenges of living with a mental disorder, both as a patient and a caregiver, this play achieving the same rich fulfilment of the promise that Foot's first original play, TSHEPANG, embodied in 2003.

With the National Arts Festival having come to a close, many people are reflecting on what they took away from their experiences in Grahamstown over the past two weeks. I have based my observations on conversations I had with artists, festival-goers, technicians and my own experience of this year's edition of '11 days of amazing'.

DANI & THE LION is cabaret as it was meant to be. Created by Daneel van der Walt, who performs original songs and stories with a cameo appearance by a few unexpected classic tunes, this show sets the gold standard for this trickiest of theatre genres.