BOOK Southern Africa

Rachelle Greeff's Play Die Naaimasjien Gets 4 Stars

by Chris on 17 Mar 2010   |   

Diane de Beer gives four stars to Rachelle Greeff’s Die Naaimasjien, which showed at the Centurion Theatre in early March. Die Naaimasjien was the winner of the 2008 Nagtegaalteaterteksprys.

Greeff’s latest publication is a collection of her columns in Die Burger and Beeld, entitled Alles behalwe die geheim van my whiskies.

This is one of those plays that is going to be part of the South African theatre landscape for a long time to come. Currently in the process of being translated into English, it will run as long as actress Sandra Prinsloo wants to play this particular character.

With most plays, that would probably not be much longer – it's already run for a year and is booked all around the country until the end of this year (from Cape Town to Richards Bay with a Free State season in between). But because of the density of the text and Prinsloo's understanding and empathy with the 81-year-old Magdaleen, who is taking leave of her sewing machine (and a large slice of her life), it seems to have a journey all of its own.

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Image courtesy Zoopy

Book details

• Alles behalwe die geheim van my whiskies by Rachelle Greeff
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  EAN: 9780798149372
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Paige Nick's novel A Million Miles from Normal to be launched at Exclusive Books Constantia 25 March @ 6 PM

by Ron on 16 Mar 2010   |   

On Thursday 25 March the launch for client Paige Nick’s ridiculously funny novel A Million Miles From Normal will happen at Exclusive Books, Constantia Village in Cape Town. 6 PM. You can check out Paige’s blog to discover what kind of person she is, and what kind of launch this is likely to be…. http://amillionmilesfromnormal.blogspot.com/

Lin Sampson Profiles Athol Fugard

by Ben - Editor on 12 Mar 2010   |   

Athol Fugard returns to SA to direct what he says may be his last play in a theatre that bears his name. The always-tetchy Lin Sampson files this highly readable interview with the Sunday Times:

Let me be honest. I always found Fugard with his ability to romance poverty and his enduring concerns for the moral state of his homeland to be a bit of a bore. His plays were peopled by “rough and tough and from the bluff” characters grinding out a living and dopping like mad. He was the magician of the marginalised.

Now he is back home from America, sitting in a space that bears his name, The Fugard, on the outskirts of District Six. Two warehouses and an old church transformed into a 270-seater working space by the Isango Portobello company, it’s a place that already beckons the creatively hopeful.

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Book details

• Tsotsi by Athol Fugard
  EAN: 9780868522173
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• Karoo and Other Stories by Athol Fugard
  EAN: 9780864866707
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• People Are Living There: Plays by Athol Fugard
  EAN: 9780195703320
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Photo courtesy the Telegraph

Breytenbach se 70ste lewensjaar gevier met Verse in my vingers (Foto's en Video)

by Carolyn on 08 Mar 2010   |   

“Dames en Here, vergun my om u voor te stel aan Breyten Breyntenbach, die maer man met die groen trui”.

Die teaterstuk Verse in my vingers, begin met hierdie bekende woorde uit Breytenbach se gedig “Bedreiging van die siekes”. In dié produksie, wat tydens die Woordfees opgevoer is, is voorlesings uit Breytenbach se werke en toonsettings van sy gedigte gebruik om hierdie groot digter se lewensverhaal te vertel.

Breytenbach word vanjaar 70. Ander groot skrywers wat vanjaar die mylpaal van 70 of 75 jaar haal, is by die Woordfees gehuldig. Breytenbach was ongelukkig nie by die fees aanwesig nie, maar Verse in my vingers het wel in sy afwesigheid sy 70 lewensjare gevier.

Musiek is deur Laurinda Hofmeyr verskaf en Johann Nel, Waldemar Schultz, Eugenie Wiggens en Hugo Theart het gedigte en ander skryfwerk van Breytenbach voorgelees. Gedigte, prosa en musiek het in die produksie soomloos in mekaar gevloei.

Daar is begin met gedigte en prosa oor Breytenbach se herkoms en familie. Hofmeyr het ‘n toonsetting van “Ek sal sterf en na my vader gaan” gesing. Daarna is Breytenbach se liefdesgedigte voorgedra en “Ek wag in my hart” is onder andere gesing.

Breytenbach se ontnugtering toe sy vrou gedurende apartheid toegang tot die land geweier is, is in sy eie woorde oorgedra. Die gehoor is bewusgemaak van Breytenbach se ambivalente gevoelens van liefde én haat teenoor Suid-Afrika.

Breytenbach se gedigte uit sy periode in die tronk is met gevoel voorgedra en so ook sy gedigte oor die dood.

Die applous aan die einde van die produksie was nie net vir die akteurs se gevoelvolle voordrag nie, maar ook vir dié meesterdigter: die maer man met die groen trui.

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Video: Laurinda Hofmeyr voer Breyten Breytenbach se “Ek sal sterf en na my vader gaan” op

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Boekbesonderhede

• Oorblyfsel/Voice over deur Breyten Breytenbach
  EAN: 9780798150712
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• Die windvanger deur Breyten Breytenbach
  EAN: 9780798147507
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Danie Botha resenseer Victoria deur Athol Fugard

by Jani on 04 Mar 2010   |   

Uitspraak: wortel

Daar het onlangs stemme op gegaan dat die Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns se Hertzogprys vir Drama ook aan ongepubliseerde dramas toegeken moet word, want daar verskyn so min in boekvorm. Uitgewers vra tereg hoeveel mense koop en lees tog nou dramas? Dié paar wat dit ­nodig het, koop een en dupliseer verder. Dalro en LitNet pak wel tekste in “spense”.
Maar tog is daar nog altyd dramas formeel gepubliseer: wanneer opvoerings daarvan “in die nuus was”, en – veral – as die teks ontleedbaar op skool is en daarom in groot getalle voorgeskryf gaan word.

• Lees die volledige resensie in Die Burger

• Victoria tuisblad

Boekbesonderhede

• Victoria deur Athol Fugard
  EAN: 9780636096554
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Skryf nou in vir die 2010 RSG-Sanlam radiodramaskryfkompetisie

by Jani on 03 Mar 2010   |   

Hoor jou storie op die draadloos met die 2010 RSG en Sanlam het so pas die radiodramaskryfkompetisie. Jy kan ook lekker geld maak – die eerste prys is R20,000 en die tweede R10,000. Verlede jaar se eerste prys het gegaan aan Piet Steyn vir Die mynramp en die tweede prys aan Leon van Nierop vir Twyfelberg. Kompetisie besonderhede volg onderaan.

Doop jou veer in ink, want die radiostasie RSG en Sanlam se radiodramaskryfkompetisie vir 2010 is pas aangekondig.

Margot Luyt van RSG sê enigeen met bewese skryftalent kan vir die kompetisie inskryf, ongeag of hulle al voorheen ’n radiodrama aangepak het of nie.

Deelnemers moet net seker maak hulle hou by die voorgeskrewe riglyne.

Oor verlede jaar se inskryf-oes sê Luyt dit was lekker om te sien dat mense respek vir die radiodrama as genre begin ontwikkel.

• Lees die volledige artikel in Beeld

Foto te danke aan Scordo

Brent Meersman Interviews Athol Fugard

by Ben - Editor on 26 Feb 2010   |   

The news that Athol Fugard is bringing his new play to Cape Town for its world premiere has SA art journos knocking at the great playwright’s door. Brent Meersman is the first one let in, and he files this terrific profile-cum-interview with the Mail & Guardian:

Athol Fugard can’t bring himself to say the name of the new theatre named in his honour. “I’m just going to call it the District Six Theatre,” he says, pen in hand to autograph a copy of his Notebooks.

For just under an hour, we have been sitting in the front row of the Fugard. For the past half-century, Fugard, reputedly the most performed playwright in the world after Shakespeare, has chronicled the realities of life in South Africa.

Starting with the earliest surviving text, No-Good Friday, performed in the Bantu Men’s Social Centre in Johannesburg in 1958, Fugard has shown not only our wickedness, but also the soul still struggling to free itself, and to blossom in common cause with all who live in this country.

• Read the complete article

Book details

• Tsotsi by Athol Fugard
  EAN: 9780868522173
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• Karoo and Other Stories by Athol Fugard
  EAN: 9780864866707
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• People Are Living There: Plays by Athol Fugard
  EAN: 9780195703320
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Image courtesy the New York Times

Athol Fugard Brings His New Play, "The Train Driver", Home

by Ben - Editor on 26 Feb 2010   |   

Alert! Athol Fugard is bringing his latest play, “The Train Driver” – which is set near Motherwell, Eastern Cape – to the new theatre in Cape Town that bears his name.

The Fugard Theatre will see the play’s world première on Wednesday, March 24, with preview performances from the 19th.

Here is the play’s blurb from the Fountain Theatre, where “The Train Driver” will have its US debut:

“This may be the most important one I’ve ever written as far as I’m concerned for personal reasons,” says Athol Fugard. The newest play by the world’s great playwright. Inspired by a true event. A tormented train driver is compelled to visit a makeshift graveyard in the middle of nowhere, determined to find the unmarked grave of the woman he unintentionally killed. A haunting, mesmerizing and deeply personal journey into the human soul.

Bookings are now open for the play, online at www.thefugard.com or by telephone: 021 461 4554. Here’s the Fugard Theatre’s press release:

The Train Driver, a new play written and directed by iconic South African theatre master Athol Fugard, will have its world première on 24 March 2010 on the stage of the new Fugard Theatre in Cape Town’s District Six, with preview performances from 19 March.

“For me, it is the biggest of them all,” said the 77-year old Fugard, currently in the country for rehearsals of the new play.

The Train Driver is set in an Eastern Cape graveyard outside Motherwell. Sean Taylor plays Rudolf Visagie, an emotionally disturbed train driver wandering into the graveyard of a desolate squatter camp near Port Elizabeth, trying to find the grave of a nameless woman and child. Owen Sejake is Simon Hanabe, a gravedigger who buries the nameless dead.

The play is dedicated to Pumla Lolwana and her three children – Lindani, Andile and Sesanda – who died on the railway tracks between Philippi and Nyanga on The Cape Flats on Friday 8 December 2000.

In an online interview Fugard refers to his latest play as “…a very stark reality about the state of South Africa.”

After each preview performance there will be a question-and-answer session with Athol Fugard and the cast. It will be an opportunity for the audience to talk to Athol Fugard, co-director Ross Devenish, and actors Owen Sejake and Sean Taylor about the production.

Recognised for hard-hitting, yet compassionate, political and social commentary in his work, Fugard is renowned for writing a number of internationally acclaimed plays including No-Good Friday (1958), Hello and Goodbye (1965), People are Living There (1968), Boesman and Lena (1969), Sizwe Banzi is dead, Statements after an arrest under the Immorality Act (1972), The Island (1973), Master Harold and the Boys (1982), The Road to Mecca (1984), My Children! My Africa! (1989), Sorrows and Rejoicing (2001) and Booitjie and the Oubaas (2006). The Oscar-winning film Tsotsi (2006) was also based on the novel by Fugard.

Some of Fugard’s other recent plays include Have you seen us? (2009) and Coming Home (2009), which is the sequel to Valley Song (1996).

Fugard currently lives in Southern California in the USA. He also owns a home in the Karoo, which he visits frequently.

The Fugard Theatre opened on 12 February. An emotional Fugard was there to receive the keys of the new theatre, alongside Producer Eric Abraham, Artistic Director Mark Dornford-May and Theatre Patron Minister Trevor Manuel.

“Athol Fugard is an international giant of drama who has over half a century created iconic South African plays featuring narratives of its entire people,” said Abraham.

Of the gala opening, Fugard said in an interview with Katy Chance from Business Day, “I feel truly humbled, but I could give you many names that should come before mine for the honour… The only way I can reconcile my name being put to it is to see it as a challenge. I defy any writer to sit in the auditorium and look at that stage and not want to create work for that space – it’s thrilling!”

The Fugard Theatre is having a very successful opening season with sell-out performances of Isango Portobello’s The Magic Flute – Impempe Yomlingo leading to additional dates being added to accommodate the demand for tickets.

The Fugard Theatre is in Caledon Street, Cnr of Harrington Street, District Six, Cape Town.

Performances of The Train Driver will be on Tuesdays to Saturdays at 19:30 and Sundays at 15:30.

Preview prices are R50 and normal prices (from 24th March) are Tuesdays R50, Wednesdays and Thursdays R80, Fridays and Saturdays R120 and Sundays R80.

Bookings for The Train Driver are now open and can be made at the theatre, online at www.thefugard.com or by phoning 021 461 4554.

Images courtesy the Guardian and Fountain Theatre

Book details

• Tsotsi by Athol Fugard
  EAN: 9780868522173
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• Karoo and Other Stories by Athol Fugard
  EAN: 9780864866707
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• People Are Living There: Plays by Athol Fugard
  EAN: 9780195703320
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Marita van der Vyver se Vergenoeg opgevoer by 2010 se KKNK

by Chris on 17 Feb 2010   |   

Marita van der Vyver bly dalk in Frankryk maar haar invloed in Suid-Afrika is steeds sterk. Die geliefde skrywer se boek Vergenoeg is onlangs verwerk vir die planke en sal vanjaar by die KKNK te siene wees. Met die briljante skrywer se werk as ruggraat en bekende akteurs soos Sandra Prinsloo en Milan Murray beloof die stuk om ‘n dawerende sukses te wees.

’n Verwerking van Marita van der Vyver se boek Vergenoeg word as ’n musiekteater-produksie op vanjaar se KKNK opgevoer.

Die spelers is San dra Prinsloo, Milan Murray en Alexa Strachan, wat ook die teks vir die verhoog verwerk het.

Herman van den Berg (in die Vrystaat bekend vir sy Brel-vertolkings) het die musiek vir die produksie geskryf.

“Dis vir my so lekker dat die boek nou ’n tweede lewe kry,” het Van der Vyver op ’n onlangse besoek aan Kaapstad oor die produksie gesê.

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Boekbesonderhede

• Vergenoeg deur Marita van der Vyver
  Boektuisblad
  EAN: 9780624041269
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Damon Galgut a PEN / O'Henry Prize Winner; and Set to Direct Waiting for Godot in Cape Town

by Ben - Editor on 16 Feb 2010   |   

Alert! Like Alistair Morgan last year, novelist Damon Galgut has been selected for inclusion in the PEN/O’Henry Prize collection of short stories, “an annual collection of the twenty best contemporary short stories selected… from hundreds of literary magazines”.

Galgut’s story, “The Lover”, appeared in The Paris Review’s Winter 2008 issue. It has been selected alongside the likes of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “The Headstrong Historian”, Annie Proulx’s “Them Old Cowboy Songs”, and Alice Munro’s “Some Women”. His inclusion in the collection will only serve to enhance his position in the van of SA’s leading literary lights.

Congratulations to Galgut!

• Click here for the complete list of 2010 PEN/O’Henry Prize winners

Meanwhile, news from the author is that he’s set to direct a stage production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot at UCT’s Little Theatre from 18 May – 5 June. This is around the time that his next book, In a Strange Room, will appear from Penguin, so it will be quite a fraught period!

The Godot cast is heavy-hitting: it’s set to feature David Isaacs and Oscar Petersen (from Joe Barber), Graham Weir (Not the Midnight Mass) and Martin le Maitre (from TV shows like Hard Copy). Mark your calendars now!

Book details

• The Impostor by Damon Galgut
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  EAN: 9780143025733
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