This article first appeared in THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

16th March 2008

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The 2008 FNB Dance Umbrella has come to an end, after a month of contrasting performances that demonstrated the rich imaginative seam running through the bedrock of South African dance.

The Gala Evening at the University of Johannesburg Arts Centre was an appropriately celebratory event, with performances of various works that have been staged at the Umbrella during its twenty-year existence.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

8th March 2008

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That congenitally unhappy Irishman, Samuel Becket, is probably top of the list of famous theatrical control freaks. The Nobel prize-winning playwright was insistent that his characters interact onstage in precisely the way that he envisioned when he penned his script; he was the bane of many a director and actor, whose creative licence was undermined by Beckett’s authorial commands. When Waiting for Godot became an international sensation, however, and was performed in different languages by different companies across the globe, Beckett had to resign himself to letting others present his great play to the world.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

1st March 2008

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Visitors to this page may know that I was recently given one of the English Academy of Southern Africa's Thomas Pringle awards (in the reviews category). The prize was based on a portfolio of reviews published in The Weekender in 2007. Now, I'm usually opposed to the kind of shameless self-promotion to which many websites resort, but in this case I'm making a rather egotistical exception.

My editor at The Weekender, Rehana Rossouw, generously used her column space in the most recent edition to cover the prizegiving event. This is what she had to say ... 

This article first appeared in THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

2nd March 2008

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Attending a double bill of performances by the Via Katlehong dance company at the Market Theatre – the fourth of over twenty programmes making up this year’s FNB Dance Umbrella – I found myself sitting next to a boy of about six years old. “Out of the mouths of babes ...”, they say; and I couldn’t help feeling that the young boy’s unrestrained responses to the first half of the show (“Toutes sorts des déserts”, choreographed by Christian Rizzo, who was invited to work with Via Katlehong in a South African-French collaboration) expressed my own muted thoughts. 

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

1st March 2008

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Visitors to “Being Blown Backwards into the Future” may be confused about the connections between the two artists whose works are on display. The flights of fancy of Beezy Bailey dominate this exhibition at the Everard Read Gallery, while only one room has been set aside for a handful of pieces in more realist mode by Joyce Ntobe. 

This article first appeared in THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

27th January 2008

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It should be easy to review this book. After all, Berold has demonstrated his facility with language as a poet of some standing in South Africa; as editor, anthologist and interviewer he has shown a knack for careful observation and unusual insight. Moreover, China is a fascinating place, and its crucial role in geopolitical and economic affairs is unquestioned. China as experienced by a foreigner (particularly, for local readers, by a South African) is almost guaranteed to be an entertaining, enlightening subject. Unfortunately, for this reviewer, it’s not quite so straightforward.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

26th January 2008

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In Mirror, Mirror – the latest stage offering from Mike van Graan – the author of Bafana Republic turns his satirical gaze from the World Cup in 2010 to the medieval world circa 1020. The play is “set in a time of queens, knights and revolting peasants”, but this element of historical fantasy merely provides a framework for a story that is actually about South Africa.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

19th January 2008

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No doubt, when most people hear the words ‘still life’, the images that come to mind are of apples, pears, grapes and other fruit glistening in a bowl, with perhaps a vase of flowers on the side. Been there, done that, got the art class t-shirt. As an exhibition currently on display at the Old Town House in Cape Town suggests, however, this is only one aspect of a very complex art form.

This article first appeared in THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

20th January 2008

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The castle edifice that dominates the set of Mirror, Mirror prepares us for a tale of kings, queens and chivalrous knights, but it very soon becomes evident that this play is about South African realities. It seems incongruous: a hawker selling hangers and trinkets or begging for money is a familiar sight at our intersections, but this usually involves suburbanites driving SUVs and not nobles trotting on horses. Certainly not horses represented by mops.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

19th January 2008

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It’s a risky business, making plays at Maynardville. Apart from the nightly gamble with the rain, each production faces the challenges attendant on open-air theatre: a gust of wind in a microphone or a police siren in the middle distance breaking the passion or tension of a dramatic moment; the difficulty of creating intimacy and sustaining energy as these dissipate into the trees and the night sky, compounded when performing Shakespeare by the occasional need for over-acting to explain the dense Elizabethan repartee or to make the comedy funny. Still, the permanent stage and seating area that have been constructed in the park provide a rich setting in which, year by year, the actors brave the elements to provide Cape Town’s denizens and summer visitors with a quality production. When it works, the rewards are great.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

19th January 2008

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Rock stars are hardly ever on time. And they’re never early.

But Elton John gave the lie to this stereotype when, ten minutes before he was due to appear onstage at Sahara Park Newlands in Cape Town to kick off his nationwide tour last week (the other concerts were in Durban and Johannesburg), he sauntered out unannounced, gave a brief wave to the still-growing crowd and sat down at the piano.

This article first appeared in THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

30th December 2007

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The Sunday Independent asked me to write a "Top Five" summary of the best of South African theatre in 2007 ...

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

22nd December 2007

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Vusi Mahlasela is not an easy man to track down. Although describing him as ‘itinerant’ wouldn’t quite do justice to his status as one of South Africa’s most widely respected musicians, he does spend a lot of time on the road. After completing a lengthy tour of the United Kingdom, he returned home recently to open the Kirstenbosch summer season of outdoor concerts in Cape Town and, a week later, to join the stellar line-up for 46664 in Johannesburg.

This article first appeared in THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

23rd December 2007

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The perverse enthusiasm of the tabloid press for the more sordid details of the Taliep Petersen murder trial has, amongst other things, blurred a rather important fact: Petersen was first and last a supremely talented musician, and it is for this that he should be remembered. The Kramer-Petersen Songbook is an attempt to reinforce such assertions; it is not a tribute show per se (although it certainly pays tribute) but rather, according to David Kramer, “It’s about remembering a partnership, and what was achieved in that partnership.”

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

8th December 2007

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Although World AIDS Day is a commemorative and not a celebratory occasion, it was impossible to resist the good vibes at Ellis Park during last weekend’s 46664 concert. It was a musical feast from first (Cassette kicking things off with their unique brand of funk-rock) to last (Annie Lennox with her appropriately paradoxical “Walking On Broken Glass”, its upbeat melody belying lyrics that declare: “Everyone of us is made to suffer, everyone of us is made to weep ...”). For South African musos, it was gratifying as always to see local acts matching international stars for quality: Freshly Ground giving another consummate performance; Arno Carstens proving that he hasn’t gone all soft and smooth as a solo artist; Malaika doing their infectious Afro-pop thing; Goldfish demonstrating that jazz and club anthems make a surprisingly good combination; Just Jinjer returning to their pre-USA roots; even Danny K, showing that he actually can sing, teaming up with the Soweto Gospel Choir.  

But if you listened carefully in between the music – and, as far as I could tell, hardly anyone was – a sopping wet blanket loomed over the festivities.

This article first appeared in THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT 

17th November 2007

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When we meet to discuss the presidential ambitions of Evita Bezuidenhout, Pieter-Dirk Uys reminds me how this remarkable woman came to attain such a high profile in South Africa’s public life. In 1978, Uys couldn’t find his way onto a stage: “The plays I’d performed were banned, the new ones weren’t passing the censor board, and my theatre friends didn’t have the money to fight it. I thought, ‘What am I gonna do?’ And then Koos Viviers, editor of the Sunday Express, said ‘We’d like you to do a column.’ It was during the information scandal (in those days it actually was a scandal when politicians lied!) and PW Botha was coming out of the shadows like Dark Vader.” 

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

17th November 2007

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Primary Coloured: A Novel of Politics
Brent Meersman
(Human & Rousseau)

Brent Meersman hasn’t taken any chances. Readers who can’t quite figure out – after making their way through the 400 pages of his debut novel – why its fictional characters seem so familiar, can punch in the web address printed on the back cover. It’s the book’s blog. There they will find, amongst other things, a link to the Wikipedia entry for roman à clef: “French for ‘novel with a key’. A novel describing real-life events behind a façade of fiction.” Included in the list of examples is Primary Colours, Joe Klein’s book (later a movie starring John Travolta and Emma Thompson) about Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign, from which Primary Coloured takes its punning title and narrative premise.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

3rd November 2007

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Have the fashion industry and the cult of celebrity made our perceptions of beauty irredeemably superficial? Or are the airbrushed images that confront us in the print media and on TV merely reformulations of long-established archetypes? Natasha Norman poses these questions in The Look of Love, which is currently on display at the Bell-Roberts Gallery in Cape Town.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

3rd November 2007

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The cesspit of artificial glitz that is Grand West Casino has one redeeming feature: the Grand Arena, an impressive concert venue that, every so often, plays host to some authentic talent. That was certainly the case earlier this week, when a 3,000-strong crowd was treated to a genuine (jen-yuu-WINE), real-deal star in the form of Gladys Knight, who completed her South African tour in Cape Town after concerts in Jo’burg, Sun City and Durban.

This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

20th October 2007

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“Two world premieres. Two popular classics. Two groundbreaking versions. One company.” Thus declares the programme for the Isango/Portobello double-bill of A Christmas Carol / IKrismas Kherol and The Magic Flute / Impempe Yomlingo. Well, they are world premieres (the shows travel to the Young Vic in London in November); they are classics, and popular in the full sense of that word – “for the people”; they are, despite certain flaws, truly groundbreaking productions; and, impressively, they are being staged by one cast, one director, one writing team and one crew.