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Worth the weight
Worth the weight We have (if the nationwide epidemic of rape is anything to go by) the most pathological gender relations. We have the most violent (unpoliced, unprosecuted or unimprisoned) criminals. We have the most corrupt (or inept, or indifferent) government. The most abominable gap between wealth and poverty, the most vexed legacy of racial conflict. These are the maudlin declarations one is lured into making when the vicissitudes of life in SA become overwhelming. Whatever “normal” may be — and we assume there must be normality in other countries, other continents — it...
Play ‘illluminating a crisis’
Play ‘illuminating a crisis’ Brett Kebble was a character who garnered much interest and attention. It’s a phenomenon how he perpetrated the biggest corporate fraud in SA’s history and his mysterious death in 2005 (in what appeared to be an assisted suicide) was big news. Since the first reports about Kebble’s ambition to be a new Barney Barnato surfaced in the press in the 19905, playwright Allan Kolski Horwitz had followed the saga and has been horrified at the ease with which Kebble hoodwinked the financial world and corrupted so many struggle stalwarts and m...
Daring historical epic rewritten for Market stage
Daring historical epic rewritten for Market stage While at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown last year, Neil Coppen told me that he was thinking of bringing his play, Abnormal Loads, to Johannesburg’s Market Theatre. I lit up at the idea of a brand-new production at the Market (a venue where productions are endlessly recycled). But I also wondered how feasible it would be to stage the production on the rather small main stage at the complex. The stage at Rhodes University’s theatre, where the play premiered, is sunken and sprawling, easily lending itself to his production,...
Abnormal Loads
Abnormal Loads LOADS IMARIIET THERM A play for the masses The Market Theatre in Johannesburg has a history of showing some of the best plays in South Africa. Running from 11 April to 13 May 2012 is another wonderful creation, Abnormal Loads. Written and directed by 2011 Standard Bank Young Artist winner Neil Coppen, this play is a must-see. It features well known TV actor Mothusi Magano and Jenna Dunster of Isidingo.
On the stage
ArtsLeisure On the stage WITH the romantic melodrama of a telenovela, the past-meets-present lessons of a historical drama and the quest for identity of a contemporary South African play, Neil Coppen’s ABNORMAL LOADS is locked and loaded with the potential to be a jumbled bag of goodies, all fighting for prominence. Happily, the swirling mishmash of genres comes together in a lucid, arresting whole that firmly positions last year’s Standard Bank Young Artist for Drama as one of the country’s most exciting young play-writing talents. We have seen from previous Coppen plays su...
Brotherly Love
“Listen closely, and you might hear that thrilling sound that is one of the main reasons we go to the theatre, that beautiful music of a new voice.” So wrote Jason Zinoman of The New York Times in a 2007 review of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s powerful play The Brothers Size. McCraney’s drama was part of that year’s Under the Radar Festival at New York’s Public Theatre, which prompted Zinoman to note that the young playwright, then a Yale graduate student, would not remain under the radar very long. He was right. Two years later The McCarter Theatre Center of Princeton, NJ produced T...
