Rhodes Alumni artists and theatre-makers, based in Joburg, are turning to collective action to face tough economic times together.
Rhodes Alumni artists and theatre-makers, based in Joburg, are turning to collective action to face tough economic times together.
This is the view of The Framework theatre company directors James Cairns and Nina Lucy Wylde, who are pooling their talents and resources to give an old venue a new face at the National Arts Festival this year.
“It’s no secret that bringing a show to the Festival is getting harder and harder for independent theatre makers,” says Cairns. “We need the Fringe to test out new work, as a platform for that it’s crucial. But it can also be crippling once you’ve paid for travel and accommodation and fewer people can take the risk.”
This year, however, Cairns and a group of cutting-edge, Joburg-based theatre makers are confident that their programme of new work at the Drill Hall is going to draw the crowds. “There’ll be something for everyone, six shows daily,” says Wylde.
“Starting with a drama workshop, then feel-good Kaput, which was a firm favourite at the 2010 festival, followed by Discounted, a physical comedy about world debt. Fallen, Devlin Brown’s hilarious one-man show is about the end of the world and the 2012 predictions.
In the evening, people who missed ovation-award winning Sie Weiss Alles last year can catch this highlight of the 2011 festival.
The final show on the programme is Tactics, The Framework’s latest offering – an exciting form of theatre which is both scripted and improvised – totally new for the Festival. Under the banner “Good theatre needs YOU”, the Drill Hall collective are playfully styling themselves as a resistance movement, in the style of a World War 2 underground network.
“We’re more than our individual shows,” explains Tamara Guhrs, one of the creative minds on the collective. “We’re evoking the romance of old-fashioned shows from the 40s – cabaret, burlesque and vaudeville, peep-shows and revues. We want the Drill Hall to be a warm, friendly space where people can come in out of the cold, have a bite to eat or a drink at the bar, and immediately they’ll understand that they are part of something. Audiences are part of this movement, they must join us in taking a stand against mediocrity.”
The programme is curated by Joburg-based Company The Framework, who appeared at the 2010 NAF with their experimental Hamlet piece. The Framework’s team of James Cairns, Nick Pauling, Hayley Roberts and Nina Lucy Wylde promise to bring to the festival “spontaneity, danger, revelation, invention, daring, vulnerability, playfulness. You’ll see the whites of their eyes, the sweat of their brows and their hearts in their mouths. They don’t know what happens next, but they will risk all to find out. They will play to win.”
“Oh it’s all about playing to win,” says Cairns. “What’s the point of watching otherwise? We honestly believe that theatre can – must, in fact, be as fun and as breathtaking to watch as a major sporting event, and that’s why we are playing with new ways to make it unpredictable and risky. We learn the words to these scripts, but we don’t know who is playing what part and in what sequence – it could all fall apart in a heartbeat.”
The programme reveals a Who’s Who of directors and performers associated with some of the finest independent theatre to come out of South Africa in the past decade. James Cairns earned the headline last year, “Cairns can do no wrong”.
Reviewer Carla Lever wrote “It’s official: I’ll see anything James Cairns is in. The man is astoundingly talented and I can’t say enough good things about his performances. Now I can add his writing to the mix too.” Megan Furniss said of his newest script, “Genius… Sie Wiess Alles is great work performed brilliantly. See it.”
0James Cuningham and Helen Iskander of Fresco theatre have gathered an enormous following at the National Arts Festival with works like Jutro and Baobabs don’t grow here, mesmerising audiences with their signature heartfelt clowning.
At the Drill Hall this year Cuningham directs Kaput, described by Cue in 2010 as “superb…mesmerising…a total gem”. Set in a country that has seen many decades of war, two brothers live peacefully near the Mediterranean Sea.
They spend their days fishing, barbering and fantasising about the local talent. Then a foreign occupation disrupts their lives in unimaginable ways. Steve Kretzmann wrote of the play, “Only women could take the mickey out of a male character the way that Iskander and Bennett do.
Iskander gives us the responsible, controlled, macho and sensitive Georges to whom your heart goes out, while Bennett, with her locks, gives us the playful small town gigolo Raphael whom you cannot help but laughingly fall in love with.” (Steve Kretzmann, Saturday Jun 26, 2010, Artsblog).
Iskander ( Planet B; The Famished Road; Baobabs Don’t Grow Here ) also directs Discounted, presented by The Mob, a young company of names-to-watch Wits University graduates. With world debt as a source of inspiration the piece explores the role of delusion in the face of financial difficulty.
A group of shop workers prepares for customers in a place where people have long gone. The manager motivates, in the hope that tourism will pick up, but struggles to hide the truth as events unfold. This is a brilliant physical comedy not to be missed.
The one-man show on the programme is Fallen, directed by Mongi Mthombeni, whose company Dark Laugh Productions produced the Naledi-award winning show The Butcher Brothers. Devlin Brown’s performance centres around investigative journalist Frank Donelly who “did not get the message” that the world is ending in 2012.
“He did however see the Morning Star fall from the sky to Earth, on to the quiet farming town of Bethlehem, South Africa. The end is naai…” “The shows are all incredibly diverse,” explains Wylde. “We’ve got comedy, psychological drama, satire and cutting-edge, risk-all improvisation – but each piece has in common the fact that they are home-grown by artists who believe in good, uncompromising theatre, and the power of story.
This year the focus is on brand-new original South African scripts. Next year it may be something else.” As if to cement this commitment to fostering original theatre, the programme also features something unusual for the Festival – a daily drama workshop entitled Flying Lessons.
“Being creative is like learning to fly,” the blurb from Flying House says. “First you dream it, then you plan it, then you take the dive.” The workshops are aimed at aspiring actors, writers or theatre-makers “from 12 to 90” and promise to be “nothing like you’ll get at school”.
Festival-goers can look forward to experiencing the Drill Hall as a place for artists to mingle, talk about what they’ve seen and brew new ideas. Audiences must participate in that conversation. The Framework’s approach demands of performers: Play yourself, play the best part of yourself, don’t ever apologise and play to win.
For further information please contact: Nina Lucy Wylde by email on theframeworksa@gmail.com or Tamara Guhrs on Tamara.guhrs@gmail.com or 073 227 0777.
