Arts writer
THE Siyasanga Cape Town Theatre Company, under the direction of Roy Sargeant and Fatima Dike, have been running the Black Playwrights’ Forum over the past six months. Two new plays by young playwrights were selected for editorial development – Three’s A Crowd by Pfarelo Nemakonde and Ingubo Emhlophe by Gcobani Zatu.
Three’s A Crowd is Nemakonde’s second play. He will be remembered for Chomi, his first play which was a riotous success in last year’s Artscape Spring Drama Season. In Nemakonde’s new play he once again runs a critical eye over the lives of black gay men in a plot of adulterous confusions and interferences by well-meaning friends. Nemakonde’s trademark sardonic sense of humour will be on display once again. Three’s A Crowd will be tried out at a reading at The Rosebank Theatre at 16 Alma Road, Rosebank on Saturday at 3.30pm. There is no charge for tickets and audiences are invited to write up their responses to the play in a questionnaire after the performance.
In Ingubo Emphlophe(The White Blanket) Zatu explores the degradation of the Xhosa tradition of circumcision. It also explores the breakdown of traditional healing in modern South Africa, while, at the same time, examining the people who are slaughterers for ancestral rituals.
This play will be read in November at the Guga S’thebe Theatre in Langa.
Rafiek Mammon’s new work, My Name Is Catherine, emerges from the Siyasanga New Playwriting Programme. It is an eccentric exploration of Catherine Warner, who has a date with destiny: a date is to commit suicide. Catherine, a 39-year-old singer/actress, is on top of a high-rise in the heart of Cape Town’s CBD. She is ready to jump. Can Bradley Hendricks, a 40-year-old police inspector who chose a “normal”, but unreservedly humdrum life of marriage, two children and a house in the suburbs, talk her into changing her mind? Through flashbacks to key moments with her partner, the enigmatic Palesa, we learn why she is where she is today… Will it be a happily ever after for these three characters?
Mammon’s play will be read on Saturday October 31 at 2pm at The Rosebank Theatre. Once again entrance is free. The cast is Anthea Thompson, Charlton George and Zoliswa Kawe.