The Rhodes Drama Department presents two productions by leading artists for this year’s Best of Fest programme on Monday 9 September and Tuesday 10 September.
The Rhodes Drama Department presents two productions by leading artists for this year’s Best of Fest programme on Monday 9 September and Tuesday 10 September.
First audiences will be treated to acclaimed director Rob Murray with Andrew Buckland and Liezl de Kock in one of the highest grossing productions from this year’s festival, Crazy in Love.
The night after will have yet another Murray/Buckland team-up with Ubom! Eastern Cape Drama Company’s smash hit Hoss.
Devised and performed by Buckland and De Kock under the direction of Rob Murray, with design by Jayne Batzofin, Crazy in Love is the tragicomic story of a father-daughter search for their missing mother. When the independent and free-spirited Leon (Buckland) is abandoned at the altar by his bride to be, he is left literally holding the baby.
From his grief comes a singular resolve: to travel the country with his infant daughter, Ginny (De Kock), until he finds his lost love and their trinity can be reunited. His quest quickly becomes an obsession, and at each town they reach where she isn’t, he tattoos that town's name on his skin.
It is now some 15 years later. Ginny is coming of age and starting to realise the desire to achieve her own independence, while Leon has retreated into alcoholism and despair and his body has become a veritable roadmap of tattoos.
As their individual obsessions spiral out of control, and they become lost in their own personal routines and mythologies, a massive shift in their relationship is imminent – if they have the courage and conviction to break out of their own cycles.
Inspired by an episode in John Irving’s Until I Find You, and told in a captivating blend of physical and visual performance, Crazy in Love is a paean to love and its ensuing madness.
“I’ve always been captivated by deceptively small human stories that tell a much larger archetypal tale,” says director Rob Murray. “And two that have always stuck with me have been James (Cuningham) and Helen’s (Iskander) Baobabs Don’t Grow Here and John Wright’s On the Verge of Exploding. And in many ways Crazy in Love pays homage to these, as well as existing in its own right in the telling of a very moving and hilarious tale.”
This is the fourth work created by the open-door collective that is A Conspiracy of Clowns. Other work it has produced have been the smash hit Pictures of You (multi Fleur du Cap winner and top selling 2009 theatre production on the NAF Fringe), Kardiâvale (cult cabaret clown noir first presented on the NAF Arena Programme in 2011), and Benchmarks (first presented, in association with FTH:K, on the 2011 NAF Main Programme and Handspring Puppet Company Award winner).
While the collective is not confined to one style, what runs like creative DNA through their work is a very strong emphasis on collaboration in the creation of their unique stories. “Liezl and Andrew are fantastic together on stage,” continues Murray, “Which we saw last year while creating Through Blue for Ubom!. The kind of stage chemistry they tap into is very rare and one we couldn’t ignore, so looked for the vehicle to best provoke that.”
Design has always featured prominently in Conspiracy works, from the captivating masks and sets in Pictures of You and Benchmarks, as well as the grungy underworld noir of Kardiâvale. Crazy in Love is no exception.
“We were very fortunate to get Jayne Batzofin to come play with us,” enthuses performer and co-artistic director Liezl de Kock. “And she has really made the world come alive. From the gritty day to day life of Dad and Ginny to Ginny’s obsessive, almost fetishist, shrine to her missing mother – Jayne has given us so many toys to play with!”
The age recommendation for Crazy in Love is PG. It shows on Monday 9 September at 7pm and last one hour.
Ubom! Eastern Cape Drama Company's Hoss is an exciting South African story seen through the lens of a good ol’ Western movie. Welcome to the Wild Wild East…ern Cape.
A small trading store on a derelict stretch of land (or is it a Western saloon?) sees the gathering of a family to settle an age old land issue. But the family is riddled with secrets, and these have a way of coming out. The stage is set for an apocalyptic showdown as ambitions, dreams, modern cowboys, tall tales, frontier myths, and cultures clash in an inevitable showdown.
For it is said that there stalks an avenging angel through this land, and he is hell-bent on Judgement Day…
Widely known and respected for its performance style of action, song, and comic physical theatre, Ubom! teams up again with Buckland and Murray. Devised and performed by Buckland, Elisha Mudley, Sparky Xulu, Seneliso Dladla, Thami Baba, Megan van Wyk, and Luvuyo Yanta, Hoss is directed by Murray and designed by Catherine Jacot-Guillarmod.
The age recommendation for Hoss is PG. It shows at 7pm on Tuesday 10 September and lasts one hour.
Tickets for both productions are from the Theatre Cafe at R40 (public) and R25 (students). For more information call Sarah at 046 603 8966 or visit www.ru.ac.za/drama/productions/events
