by Keith Bain | May 11, 2026 | FEC
In the small, barren back room of a church hall in Milnerton, walls peeling with rising damp, the overhead lights harsh, I watched actors Mienke Ehlers and Dean John Smith run out of words. It was ten days before their debut at KKNK on 28 March and they were...
by Keith Bain | May 11, 2026 | FEC
In an era when each day’s farcical headlines seem to allude to yet another outsized tantrum involving a publicly-elected octogenarian throwing his toys out the White House cot, it seems perfectly reasonable to write a play about a toddler trapped in the body of a...
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...
