The Baxter Theatre Presents Andrew Buckland's '1 Man...3 Shows...100 Characters', 5/4-5/22

This extraordinary three-week season features three one-man plays performed in repertory by Andrew Buckland, and celebrates the contribution to the South African performance canon of this unique performer. All three are directed by Janet Buckland. From May 4 to 22 at Golden Arrow Studio.

The plays are The Ugly Noo Noo, Between The Teeth (both written by Andrew Buckland), and a work scripted by the Nobel Prize-winning Italian theatre maker Dario Fo, Mistero Buffo, first performed in 1969.

THE UGLY NOO NOO

More than twenty years ago in 1988 the Theatre World in South Africa was rocked by the arrival of a new work with an unusual name, played by an unusual performer. Andrew Buckland's The Ugly Noo Noo, featuring the infamous Parktown Prawn, which combined sharp political satire with exquisite humour and superb technical performance skill, became the benchmark for solo physical theatre performance. The legend of The Ugly Noo Noo was begun. The extraordinary nature of the show and its creator is witnessed by the fact that the show is still being played today to universal acclaim. More than twenty years later the play is as enthralling and as funny as it ever was.

It received a total of 17 national and international awards, including a Fringe First and a Perrier Pick of the Fringe short-listing from the Edinburgh Festival. Awards were for the script, the direction and the performance.

BETWEEN THE TEETH

Between the Teeth, first performed in 1991, was developed as a theatrical and comically satirical response to a government which, despite its obvious and fast approaching demise in the 1980s, had become expert at the distortion of the spoken word to justify ideological absurdities and human atrocities. The play takes a seriously comic look at the relationship between word, gesture, meaning and truth. The relationship between war and money, the way in which language is used as a form of self-defence, and the inflammatory nature of racial insults all become satirical weapons in the hands of the performer.

The play has won several professional awards, including the Star Tonight! Award for comedy in 1992 and a Fringe First as part of a season of work from the Edinburgh Festival.

MISTERO BUFFO

Written by Dario Fo and first staged in 1969, this one-man epic performance combines the grotesque comedy of the Italian medieval performance traditions with razor-sharp contemporary political satire. The play, which caused great controversy in 1977 when televised, by distilling the popular and irreverent elements of medieval mystery plays, functions as a political and cultural onslaught against the repressions of religious institutions and landowning classes throughout history, expressing them in the language of the peasantry.

Andrew Buckland presents this onslaught from a specifically South African perspective and, in so doing, accesses the universal truths of this phenomenal work of theatre. The work is sophisticated yet simple, wildly physical and extremely funny.

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE (all performances are at 20:15)

Tuesday 4 May The Ugly Noo Noo
Wednesday 5 May The Ugly Noo Noo
Thursday 6 May Between the Teeth
Friday 7 May Mistero Buffo
Saturday 8 May Mistero Buffo
Monday 10 May Between the Teeth
Tuesday 11 May Between the Teeth
Wednesday 12 May Mistero Buffo
Thursday 13 May Mistero Buffo
Friday 14 May The Ugly Noo Noo
Saturday 15 May The Ugly Noo Noo
Monday 17 May Mistero Buffo
Tuesday 18 May Mistero Buffo
Wednesday 19 May The Ugly Noo Noo
Thursday 20 May The Ugly Noo Noo
Friday 21 May Between the Teeth
Saturday 22 May Between the Teeth

Prices:
Mondays R70 (See Baxter Mondays below)
Tuesday-Thursday R120
Fridays and Saturdays R130
Special offer: Book for all three productions for R200 (Baxter Mondays excluded)

Discounts:
Students, UCT staff, senior citizens and block bookings of 10 or more R80 (Tuesday-Thursday only)
Baxter Club members R65 (performances from 4 to 8 May only)

BAXTER MONDAYS
Special offer for Monday nights only! Have a light meal in the Baxter Restaurant and see a performance of one of Andrew Buckland's plays for only R70

For more information, click here.

 

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