Song and Dance is the title of my new play. It was chosen as one of four in the comedy section of the PANSA competition of staged play readings taking place next weekend at the Magnet Theatre in Obz. The director Ntombi Makhutshi and her fab cast were rehearsing yesterday and I stopped by to drop off some set and props for them. I have realised that this is the first time I have properly handed over something that I have written myself to another director. It is totally liberating. It helps that I trust them completely, but weirdly, that isn’t the main issue. The big deal for me is not that we win the competition (although that would be nice) but rather that my play gets worked on and played with by a cast and director and we get to see whether, if and how it works. It’s one thing for me to direct my own words off a page but quite another for someone else to interpret it. And it is at that point that I become a playwright as opposed to theatre maker.
Song and Dance is a 5pm on Saturday 19 May. Come. Let me know what you think.
I was flu-ish and slightly feverish last night. I thought it wouldn’t be a great way to experience David Kramer’s famous musical Kat And The Kings, but instead I had an amazing and slightly transcendent experience. I sat in the Fugard theatre last night and had one of those moments of pure childhood fantasy. It was an idea of the impossible made real, like when you thought you could really, really have a talking dog, the only one ever and it would belong to you? The power of the childhood fantasy was always an emotional one too. It made you feel something huge and indescribable; a feeling of such potent longing and possibility. That’s what I felt last night in the theatre during Kat And The Kings.
I am not going to go into any detail about this production (which is completely fabulous) or the cast (who are mostly amazing) or the design (lovely) or the production values (awesome), or the absolute hugeness of the difference a live band makes. Let’s take how good this show is for granted. I want to talk about the other stuff, the stuff it made me feel.
Imagine this. Imagine that Kat and The Kings was a show that ran in Cape Town, right where it is now, at The Fugard, for forever. Imagine that every tourist, both local and international, when they came to Cape Town went to Robben Island, Table Mountain, to the penguins, and to Kat And The Kings. Imagine many of them being disappointed because shows were sold out months in advance. The cast would change, people would move on, but Kat And The Kings would keep going. Locals would attend every couple of years, celebrating birthdays, and anniversaries, and even deaths. People would come to Kat And The Kings as one of the first things they did when they came home to the city. Audiences would dress up on certain nights (like the Rocky Horror Picture Show) in polka dot skirts, kid gloves, pomaded hair and skinny ties. School kids would come, at least once during primary school and once during high school, as part of the school syllabus. Old people would come, from Woodstock and Rylands and Athlone and the Flats to hear the stories of their parents and grand parents.
Kat And The Kings would run for years and years and years, like Moulin Rouge in Paris. It would be part of Cape Town, and it would preserve that history and all its charm in the best possible way. In theatre. In song. In laughter. And love. We could make this happen. We could just keep going to Kat And The Kings.
Yesterday Big Friendly and I celebrated our 8th anniversary. It’s not a lot, compared to the many marriages out there that have lasted a lifetime, and we did only find each other later in our lives, but it has been the best working part of each of our lives these last eight years.
Last night (I felt flu-ish and feverish all day) over a quiet meal at one of our favourite restaurants we chatted about how lucky we were, with each other and for each other (I know. If anyone was listening it sounds like a Mills and Boon ending in real life), but we also spoke about why it worked and why we were so lucky. Here are some of those thoughts and reasons.
We support each other. We support each other when things are not going well for each other, but more importantly, we support each other when things are going brilliantly. I am utterly convinced that Big Friendly’s support is a large part of the success I consider I have achieved in the last eight years; professionally, socially and psychologically. I have a husband who delights that I am going to New York and Australia and will be away for a month and a half, and will do anything to help. Yes, we will miss each other, but we want the best things for each other, and will help each other have them.
We champion each others’ causes. In very different ways. Big Friendly is loyal and elephantine in memory. He does not forget a hurt I feel, and feels it long after I have recovered. I am the talk machine of support. I will talk a thing through and through, and listen to it from every angle.
We have our work around the house and Big Friendly does things for me, and me for him, with love.
I hear him when he says he doesn’t really like going out, and I go out without him, often. And then, sometimes he does come with me, to be with me. And sometimes I just stay at home, to be with him.
We have suffered the loss of animals deeply and painfully, and our love of them has brought us closer.
We are proud of each other. Glowingly proud. We show each other off when we talk about each other (but not necessarily in front of each other; Big friendly would die). Big Friendly tells everyone about my work all the time, doing publicity for me with such sincere pride in my achievements. The result is that he validates them for me, and when I have moments of doubt, they can, and are assuaged by the one who believes in me.
We recognise each other’s weaknesses but don’t use them against each other. We don’t store old hurts and bring them up to hurt each other. We generally make a big effort not to cause each other pain or anger. And we try very hard not to blame each other. This last one is not easy, for both of us, but we work on it, and get it mostly right.
We hardly ever fight. We have had maybe four big fights in our relationship of nine years. This is a personal miracle for us because I am queen of confrontation and Big Friendly is emperor of the cold war. We decided not to fight and haven’t.
Of course there are niggles. And moments of irritation. And the one time (out of twenty) that we don’t get each other, or agree. And then, we are more surprised than anything else, because there is so much we do completely see and be eye to eye on. And for those of you who know us in real life, you must know I don’t mean that literally. It’s a size thing.
It also helps that we find each other hilarious. And that we send each other pictures of animals all day.
I am getting up now. I want to make Big Friendly lunch to take to work. He is making my coffee. Life is good.
I am on such a high. I have just come back from the first read through of Song and Dance, my brand new play that is one of four that was chosen for the PANSA staged readings here, in the comedy category, in Cape Town. I was quite nervous to hear it for the first time.
I have taken quite a few risks; with the characters, the set-up, the language and even the style of the piece. My biggest fear was that I was the only one who found it funny. Writing comedy is a whole ‘nother ball game. But, I literally had tears streaming down my face all the way through the first reading. It was totally hilarious.
The amazing director, Ntombi Makhutshi gets my humour completely, and she cast the piece with her first choices, who were all, magically, available. They are in no particular order, the gorgeous Zondwa Njokweni, the hilarious Deon Nebulane and the hugely talented and funny Anele Situlweni.
I am a control freak. I like to do everything myself, and to know about every last thing. But this feels totally different. I left that rehearsal space delighted, excited and trusting that this unbelievable team are going to have the best time, and come up with something wonderful.
The four play readings will take place on the 18th and 19th of May at The Magnet Theatre in Obz. Tickets to the plays are R30 and I am pretty sure there are going to be some fun things. Come check it out.
You know that feeling when many of the crowd get to their feet for a standing ovation at the end of a show and you remain plastered to your seat? The first thing I always think is, is it just me? Didn’t I get it? Later on, thinking about it, and once I am over the thought that it’s all a bit “emperor’s new clothes” I realise that it’s all to do with being moved. I have to be moved to my feet. That’s what sweeps me up.
There is so much that is amazing about Neo Muyanga’s ‘operetta’ Flower of Shembe. The huge, metal flowers of the set. The water. The music. The costumes. The performers, musicians and dancers. And yet, everything distracts from everything. It’s like watching a giant, gorgeous parade. The story is interesting and complicated, but, the overall feeling is that (other than the curtain call/finale, which was my best part) it’s all too on the same level; of energy, of performance, of dancing. It comes at you, over and over again, in exactly the same way. And I think this is such a great pity.
Faniswa Yisa, Chuma Sopotela, the gorgeous angel dancers Thabisa Dinga and Sean Oelf, the mad king Ledimo played by Luvuyo Mabutho (my absolute favourite performer of the night) were all really good. But I got bored of them doing the same thing, over and over again, with the same intensity. Nothing built. We were taken straight to the moment, and then it was repeated too many times. There is no doubt that director Ina Wichterich is an amazing choreographer, but for me, it felt like the scope of the work got the better of her. Beautiful ideas were clumsily executed (like the angel contraption), gorgeous music had bad technical sound.
Secretly, I wished I could have watched the musicians playing on that set, and listened to the magical, transcendent music. The rest was a big, repetitive distraction.
I am getting ready for a huge week that includes trying to sort out visas to Australia and America, paying for our Australian tickets, talking this morning on The Taxi, playing TheatreSports tonight and tomorrow night, publicising the fact that Computicket bookings are now open for the Send CT to Canberra FUNdraiser, making sure our performance of Engen Smile – The Musical goes off well, attending the Proyecto Theatre in Translation launch on Wednesday night, and keeping an eye on the staged reading of my new play, Song and Dance, for the PANSA play reading competition, the first round of which takes place on the 18 and 19 of May. And my friend read and loved my as yet unpublished novel. I am a lucky fish.
My darling Godfrey Johnson put together an art exhibition, See The Point Darling – An Exhibition and Auction and it is on right now at The Framery, 67g Regent Road, Sea Point. The idea was to get non-painters to paint and then to auction the paintings off for charity, with funds going to The Darling Trust. I painted this picture called Elephant Dreaming Dreaming Elephant (and so far someone has bid R500 for it). I love this painting by Leon Kowarski and have opened the bidding on it. There are paintings by Pieter-Dirk Uys, Tandi Buchan, Charles Tertiens, Didi Moses, Karen Jeynes; to name a few. Go and take a look, bid, and support this fab, fun idea.
I am so excited to be part of this. On Wed 2 May I am attending the launch of this book, and my play, The Tent, is in it. 
So somehow this extraordinary, amazing, confusing and totally magical city of ours, Cape Town, has scored itself a guardian, ambassador, spokesperson, critic, teacher, reflector, therapist and rabble rouser, and it is Soli Philander. I have been joining him on Mondays on his internet radio station The Taxi, because I love theatre, and I love talking about theatre, and Soli shares my passion (even though he has many, many others).
When a slot became available at The Kalk Bay Theatre, Soli and his Taxi team took two weeks of it to do Taxi Nights, and I went to witness this last night. Taxi Nights is really a showcase of the young talent that Soli has taken under his wing. These young, fresh people share their skills with the audience in the first half, and there is a guest performer (last night it was the hilarious and hysterical comedian Wayne Mckay, and the last three shows are Gift Gwe, Siv N and Shimmy Isaacs, in that order). In the second half Soli performs some of his favourite female characters from years (and productions) gone by.
Taxi Nights is not slick. It takes full advantage of the intimate space at the KBT and it feels like you are in Soli and Toni (his wife)’s lounge. It’s like being introduced to the voices and names of The Taxi in person. And the experience is warm, funny, touching and even surprisingly shocking and terrifying at times. Eugene Matthews introduced us to everybody, mostly by screaming for them to come on stage (very funny), Ronald Jones sang with a voice like an angel, Christian Bennet did a monologue that was totally extraordinary, Roshan Philander (Wonderbra) spoke a Maya Angelou poem. Toni and the ghaatjie did sound and lights. It was a family affair.
It was a weirdly satisfying night of non theatre at my favourite theatre. I know how much I enjoyed it when I said to my friend that I wished I could get my hands on those kids and work with them, especially Christian. His monologue deserves to be made into a full play.
Soli is a very special man, with special ideas and plans. We Capetonians need to take care of him. He is a most valuable resource.
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