THE FUNERAL to Play South African Sendinggestig Museum

THE FUNERAL, a theatre piece written and performed by Mpapa Simo Majola, will play the South African Sendinggestig Museum in Cape Town. Directed by Phala O. Phala, the hour-long production features choreography by Billy Langa.

In THE FUNERAL, Scotch finds his spirit caught up in limbo, where he is yet to find the right hand of God or the sensation of burning from the eternal flames of Hell. Maybe the injustice that keeps this restless soul from crossing over is that he was not buried in the favourite scotch jacket which got him his nickname, or perhaps it is the notion that has always stayed in his mind - that all existing dogmas and religions were just ways of trying to find a way to perpetuate themselves. Set in a world that Scotch perceives as the space of nothingness, THE FUNERAL is a meditation on our own fraught connection with life and death, told through movement, poetry and text in a series of lyrical vignettes and disconnected monologues.

Simo Majola works as a writer, director, actor, and choreographer with various production companies, playwrights, humanitarian organisations, community groups, filmmakers and musicians. He has spent all his artistic years as a freelance practitioner, writing for organizations like Ox Farm GB, South African History Online, the Goethe Institution, RapeNoMore.org and the Ethekwini Municipality. His work represents a broad spectrum, of social, historical and township mythologies and cultural interests.

Choreographer Billy Langa is a graduate of The Market Theatre Laboratory and a co-founder and the artistic director of the Kofifi Theatre Company, which is based in Sophiatown at the Trevor Huddleston Memorial Centre. Langa started his career professionally in 2010 with a productions by the United Kingdom's Tongues of Fire Youth Theatre Company, including ZANANDULE - THE SPIRIT OF THE ELEPHANT and UBUNTU-SPIRIT. He continues to search and explore his love for Physical Theatre with LE CLUB at Well Worn Theatre.

Phala O. Phala, who serves as director of THE FUNERAL, is a WITS graduate and an award-winning director. His direction of KAFKA'S APE earned him a Standard Bank Ovation Award at the 2015 National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.

THE FUNERAL takes place at the SA Sendinggestig Museum at 40 Long Street from 1 - 3 December at 19:30, with tickets costing R80-R90. Bookings can be made online at the Alexander Bar website or purchased at the bar. For telephone enquiries, call 021 300 1652. Alexander Bar & Café is situated at 76 Strand Street in the Cape Town city centre and can be followed onFacebook and Twitter. Tickets can be collected from the SA Sendinggestig Museum in the half hour before the production, with audiences able to visit the Alexander Bar itself before or after the show.

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