David Fick - Page 6

Mongiwekhaya's I SEE YOU / NGIYAKUBONA / EK SIEN JOU / NDIYAKUBONA places the issue of reconciliation within and between black communities within the wider context of South Africa's fractured rainbow nation - an image that was perhaps more idealistic than true.

Penny Youngleson's new play accomplishes its enlightenment through a domestic scenario without ever becoming didactic or patronising; that it does so by using a powerful, unique and pliable central metaphor makes SILLAGE all the more remarkable.

Cape Town City Ballet is nothing if not ambitious. SHADES OF LOVE sees the company's featured artists dancing superbly, but the production never coheres into a fully-realised evening of ballet.

Rob van Vuuren's LIFE is a side-splitting observation of the way we live today. Van Vuuren is uproariously funny, landing the many laughs that he sets up with his particularly distinctive flair. But watch out if you're seated in the first few rows...

YOU SUCK (AND OTHER INESCAPABLE TRUTHS) is hilariously biting comedy from playwright-performer Klara van Wyk, keeping the audiences in stitches of laughter from start to finish as she delves into the depths what it means to be a school pupil in our turbulent times.

In FROM THE HEART, the focus on and celebration of June Carter Cash as an individual is long past due, a welcome realignment of her story from her own perspective rather than as a supporting player in the narrative of her husband, the man in black, Johnny Cash.

The director of ASSITEJ SA, Yvette Hardie, responds to the BroadwayWorld South Africa article, 'On the Meaningful Recognition of Theatre for Young Audiences at South African Theatre Awards Ceremonies'.

How meaningful is the recognition of Theatre for Young Audiences at major South African theatre awards ceremonies such as the Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards and the Naledi Theatre Awards>

The 51st Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards were presented at the Baxter Theatre Centre in Cape Town on Sunday night in a ceremony that highlighted the theme of 'new beginnings'. With the main event taking place in the newly refurbished Baxter Theatre, this year's winners all received a newly designed medallion. The evening also aimed to present to the audience of theatre-makers, performers, designers, critics and patrons a fusion of cultures.

Words are perhaps inadequate repositories to record the visceral emotional experience of watching I TURNED AWAY AND SHE WAS GONE. It has to be seen. You have to live through it. And when you have, you too will see how I TURNED AWAY AND SHE WAS GONE continues to live in you, just as it has in me.

Drugs are bad, yo. And sex? It'll ruin your life. These are just two of the life lessons to be learned in the gauchely naive BEAUTIFUL WRECKAGE, a new pop-rock musical written and performed by Grant Jacobs and Liam McDermott

CANNIBAL COUNTRY, a new physical theatre drama written by Alex McCarthy, made its bow at the Alexander Bar and Cafe's Upstairs Theatre this week. The timing is opportune, with protests at the University of Cape Town, of which McCarthy is a graduate, once again seeing emotions run high in both the mainstream and social media.

The latest entry in the tradition of FRANKENSTEIN parody and satrire is local theatre-maker Callum Tilbury's DOCTOR GODENSTEIN'S MAN, starring Wessel Pretorius and Ameera Conrad in a production directed by Byron Bure at the Galloway Theatre.

A revival of the iconic South African children's television show, BANGALORY TIME, adults are able to bring their children and grandchildren to enjoy fondly BANGALORY'S BACK and create some new fans at the same time.

Theatre criticism, they say, is in crisis. Follow the news feed of any theatre practitioner on any social media platform, and chances are that an impassioned debate will arise on the subject at some point. BroadwayWorld Contributing Editor David Fick takes a look at nature of criticism, its relevance and place in contemporary society and the ability of critics themselves to perceive the theatrical act.

EVERY BEAUTIFUL THING is a bittersweet microcosm of the human experience. It is in grappling with these two sisters' encounter that elusive thoughts rise to the surface about what lies behind the artifice of one's own life. Beautiful pain. Finding one in the other is our only hope.

Some three decades after its first premiere, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS still delivers on its promise to be an enjoyable romp for its audiences. In this production, there is a great deal of fun to be had in the kind of musical that offers only the slightest commentary on the world around us - 'whatever they offer you, don't feed the plants' - and mostly expects its viewers to kick back, relax and go along for the ride.

The Fugard Theatre's production of CABARET begins with a perfectly realised moment of theatre. Before long, the magic of that moment wears off, and this production of the classic John Kander, Fred Ebb and Joe Masteroff musical begins to flounder in Matthew Wild's directionless staging of the piece.

The Fleur du Cap nominations are out! Here are some thoughts about the nominees in each of the categories.

ORPHEUS IN AFRICA is all set to be a grand, old-fashioned classic musical in the Rodgers and Hammerstein tradition. Kramer has unearthed a fantastic historical footnote and found the reason that this story deserves to be raised into our consciousness more than a century after Orpheus McAdoo's death in 1900.