by Keith Bain | Jul 31, 2025 | FEC
The stage is a divided realm, its representation of Harare State House, circa 2001, visually emerging from the raw earth, bursting up through the rubble and detritus of an African wasteland. The presidential living room, where most of the play’s intrigue unfolds, is...
by Keith Bain | Jul 29, 2025 | FEC
The first thing I noticed about Calvin Ratladi were his eyes. Huge, mysterious pools of something warm and comforting. We met on the stairs leading up to Rhodes Theatre in Makhanda, where the play he directed for this year’s National Arts Festival was about to...
by Keith Bain | Jun 30, 2025 | FEC
Silence and inaction are the torments at the heart of ‘Bridling’, a short story that’s now a riveting play debuting at the National Arts Festival in Makhanda this week. The terror of it struck me instantly. Only for a moment, but as the stage lights...
by Keith Bain | Jun 25, 2025 | FEC
The theatre director says “The Fugue of Tjebolang”, a dreamy tale about gender fluid people journeying into the world, is also full of sex and possesses the potential to heal. “I’m very much done excavating my pain for audiences,” says actor and...
by Keith Bain | May 31, 2025 | FEC
Family secrets, handed-down traumas, a search for truth, and storytelling as a ritual of healing: the play examines life’s darkest crevices, and in the process manages to engage, entertain and move. One problem with theatre-in-the-round: if the on-stage action doesn’t...
