David Fick - Page 9

FRANÇOISE HARDY & BREL, SO ALIVE, SO WELL! locates itself within the tradition of popular entertainment in cabaret, an unassuming compilation of songs made famous by Francoise Hardy and Jacques Brel, threaded together by the slightest suggestion of a narrative concept in which the two meet in a Parisian cabaret club in the early 1960s.

BLUEPRINT is the high profile, alternative new dance project by Darkroom Contemporary, a project being presented under the World Design Capital banner at the Cape Town City Hall. Louise Coetzer choreographs a quartet of dances on a sestet of dancers to make up the programme.

Eugene O'Neill's DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS is the subject of a new adaptation, with the action transferred from 1840s New England to the Eastern Cape of the 1890s in an attempt to amplify the resonance that O'Neill's classic play has for the South African theatre audiences of today.

SLOWLY is theatre that pulsates with life and purpose, that demands engagement and which stirs the imagination and the emotions deeply. This uncompromising play is a must-see.

Jazzart's latest production, BHABHA, represents a low point for the company, after a downward spiral over the past 18 months. Choreographed by Moeketsi Koena and directed by Jacki Job, the show disappoints on almost every level.

VASLAV is a dynamic, vigorous and disturbing exploration of Vaslav Nijinsky's mind just prior to his internment in an asylum in Switzerland, based on the diaries he wrote over six weeks before he was committed, on the edge of a complete nervous breakdown.

The greatest thing about THE SHADOW OF THE HUMMINGBIRD is seeing South African theatre legend, Athol Fugard, back on stage. It is an event that I never thought I would see come to pass in my lifetime; that it happened is something for which I will always be grateful.

Acclaimed South African writer-director Lara Foot's new play deals with the specific trials and tribulations of the fishing community of western Kenya, telling a story that holds a great deal of resonance for us here in South Africa, without being drowned out by our own socio-political history and situation.

SALT is an incredibly satisfying theatrical experience, the emergence of a new voice within the South African theatre landscape.

Steven van Wyk and Underground Dance are back at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown with a new dance piece, BOK.

Protest theatre should burn fiercely in the darkness that surrounds it; RETURN OF THE ANCESTORS only flickers enough for us to make out what we have already seen.

WRETCHED leaves the audience knowing that hearts bleed and the power lies within us to shift our heart-spaces. The secret it shares about life in its last moments is one worth being reminded of.

In between preparations for the National Arts Festival, BWW sat down with Steven van Wyk to chat about the musical theatre comedy cabaret, BEARABLE BROADWAY.

FERGUS OF GALLOWAY makes for a great night of new musical theatre, a South African premiere of which the Rosebank can be proud of hosting in its intimate theatrical haven.

In this cabaret, Candice van Litsenborgh places centre stage those actors whose work directors love 'so doggone much that (they're) their second choice', singing a selection of 18 songs along the way.

Nine students from the University of Cape Town's Drama Department take on the time-honoured task of storytelling, providing an hour or so of rib-tickling entertainment as they make their way through ten tales from Southern Africa

PAPERBOY is a coming of age story in which writer Grant Jacobs delivers a captivating and endearing performance.

SHOW AND TELL pairs the glamorous Michele Maxwell with the urbane Roland Perold in this intimate musical revue.

Watching DIE BUFFEL and THE OPEN COUPLE is an audience friendly experience of watching a television sit-com on stage, followed by a deconstructed sit-com.

Four options for the four public access TV stations in South Africa. A great way to smarten up local television, don't you think?