David Fick - Page 5

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.

ACTRESSES: AN ADAPTATION OF CHEKHOV'S 'THE SEAGULL' is the kind of production that captures one's attention. The poster is excellent, with an image that is as provocative as production company Black Hole Collective's description of their work. Anon Chekhov's 1895 drama was first produced the following year and became a landmark play in Konstantin Stanislavsky's 1898 staging for the Moscow Art Theatre.

The winner of a Silver Standard Bank Ovation Award last year, Robaby's FATHER, FATHER, FATHER is back on the National Lottery Fringe at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. A devilishly wicked satire, this physical theatre piece was created by cast members Roberto Pombo, Joni Barnard and Rachael Neary under the direction of Toni Morkel.

PEOPLE BENEATH OUR FEET is the first original play from Hungry Minds Productions, written by Katya Mendelson and Kiroshan Naidoo in response to the refugee crisis that has been the result of the Syrian civil war. This new play grapples with important issues and represents a significant development for this young theatre company.

Although OUT OF BOUNDS is highly watchable, director Crizelle Anthony should re-interrogate her production thoroughly so as to refine both her vision and her execution of this still significant South African play by Rajesh Gopie

SCRATCH, written by Heather Livesey, describes itself as an 'indie style musical'. The piece comes across very much like a first draft, with its far-fetched and flimsy plot never finding any kind of coherent throughline in which an audience can truly invest its engagement.

What happens when your parents' legacy is one of violence, alcoholism and abuse? That question is at the heart of THE GRAVEYARD, Philip Rademeyer's magnificent new play for the Rust Co-Operative.

The first Standard Bank Ovation Award winner of the 2016 National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, BIRD/FISH, is a solo exhibition by Kristin NG-Yang.

SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD delivered an engaging 85 minutes of musical theatre, managing to explore a clear thesis while doing so. Like some of the musicals presented at the Student Arts Festival over the past few years, it raised the bar of what can be accomplished on this platform in this genre.

Certain parts of Jason Robert Brown's score for SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD have been translated for a new South African production of the show which is currently being performed at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. The intention is to explore possibilities for a greater connection for both the performers and the audience with the text of the show and the themes it communicates.

WHISTLE STOP, Ameera Patel's play about a brief encounter between a man and a woman in a park, is being revived at the National Arts Festival by Dark Laugh Theatre Company and Hijinks Theatre this year. Having won a Standard Bank Ovation Award at the National Arts Festival in 2014, the play is an absurd take on the meet-cute trope that is a staple of romantic comedies.

Piecing together a new mythology is an audacious undertaking, and yet it is an act that is at the very heart of theatre-making: the building of a new world, with its own origins and order, that only becomes fully realised when an audience believes in it. THE FIREBIRD attempts just that, telling a post-apartheid South African story against the backdrop of a created mythology.

Variety is the spice of life on the National Lottery Fringe, with anything and everything on offer for audiences. In this third and final National Arts Festival preview column, I'll be looking at three diverse productions that I managed to see on various platforms before this year's festival, which should offer something for everyone, whether you're looking for stand-up comedy, family fare or magical illusions.

In this second of three special columns previewing the National Arts Festival on BroadwayWorld, I'll be taking a look at three productions that I previously reviewed, all of which are back in Grahamstown on the National Lottery Fringe, having switched things up in one way or another since their original incarnations.

With audiences at the National Lottery Fringe at the National Arts Festival being spoiled for choice, BroadwayWorld South Africa previews some of the theatre highlights to be seen on stage at #NAF2016 in the first of three special columns.

In the months since its premiere at the National Arts Festival last year, Greg Homann and Ralph Lawson's A VOICE I CANNOT SILENCE has played seasons in Johannesburg and Durban, garnered critical acclaim and won three Naledi Theatre Awards. Finally making its bow in the Mother City at the Fugard Theatre, the play lives up to its reputation.

All eyes are on New York as the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League prepare to present the Tony Awards at the seventieth ceremony of its kind. On the morning of the awards, BroadwayWorld South Africa asked six local theatre professionals what the Tony Awards means to them and who they were hoping would bring home the bacon.

An independently produced fringe theatre piece, VACANCY prompts two BroadwayWorld South Africa reviews in one article.

Even if A COCK AND BULL STORY ultimately pulls its punches, the two performances around which Marthinus Basson builds his production are stellar, most likely some of the best work South African audiences will see on stage this year.