Things according to knolc

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Wrestlers – Theatre Review

It’d been a while since I’d come to the Artscape. I’m not sure how I feel about the complex. It seems austere. Cold to me. Aside from the glowing neon Nino’s sign, it looks like some antiquity, it is, a building from the past, when once someone thought this style of architecture was the cutting edge of fashion, and now it sits, with a still, quiet power in the darkness of the night.

It’d been a while since I’d been to an opening night there. The normal selection of those that Artscape always invites were there, but also with a nice mix of the younger theatre makers and practicioners, those who are still struggling and haven’t given up and become tea-shop owners or anything.

One of our own is in here tonight at the Artscape Arena. Milton “Normally A Good Play For Sure” Schorr. But tonight something different, not his normal taste of the macabrely absurd, or the macabrely insane, but whilst managing to retain that essential Milton detail of macabre, he’s created a realistic contemporary contextually placed play. Writer. Director. Candlestick Maker.

Most of what you watch in television is Realism, as is film. There is a traditional realist structure, and it begins with this: Status Quo. The Status Quo is the part of the story that establishes who the characters are and contextulises them in their normal life. Then the inciding incident happens, which could be finding your lucky coin, or having aliens land in the yard next door. Watch out for this.

Milton’s play dealt with the concept of drug abuse, or perhaps it rather dealt with the story of a dysfunctional family with a relapsed druggie as a son, and a crippled alcoholic as a father, and a mother who’s just trying to get by. And the imaginary boy that lives in the roof, which of course shows that my calling it traditionally realist, is not what one would traditionally consider calling true.

There are a couple of theatrical gems in this piece, some intelligent lighting, and a grim well colour co-ordinated design. The acting is strong, well I thought it was strong except for one person, but later in the evening, over a glass of whiskey, another person who’s opinion I respected told me that the person I didn’t like was their favourite, and a companion particularly disliked someone who I thought had done a jolly good job. These things can be subjective, so I’ll still my tongue.

Once it hits it’s first climatic moment, I was in there – and then it builds with a great fight scene, and the show is on! Thank God, I’m enjoying it! The tensions are building, the relationships, they intensify, and the meaning gets more complex.

Solid. Good. But let me not let it off so lightly. Problems. Why I brought up the Status Quo earlier. The Status Quo runs overlong, weighting the play down with a certain slowness, so even though the text is good, the play begins with a worrying start. Also on that particular evening, I felt, and this is one of those arcane theatrical terms that don’t really make much sense if sensically described, but I felt the actors didn’t let me into the world of the play. Instead the show was for them. But I’ve seen this before, and often it can dissapear in a run, as the actors adjust their performances for audiences.

It’s not a light play, so don’t go there expecting to get laid, unless you’re a recovering addict yourself, and can play the empathy card. If you are a recovering addict, or do know someone who’s been through this sort of intense experience, this play is well worth seeing. And of course, if you’re a fan of traditionally realist theatre, with a few clever quirks, and who want to see a solid story with skillful acting, that examines a serious problem through a very specific genuninely South African, but not stereotypically so, situation, go check it out. If you’re into Zany, Kookie, Light, or aren’t a Fan Of Serious Drama On Stage, then this might not be the one for you.

It was written and directed by Milton Schorr, designed by Angela Nemov, lighted by Alfred Rietmann, with sound by Shaun Michau, and performed bye Deon Lotz, Deidre Wolhuter, Jason Potgieter and Travers Snyders. It goes till the 8th November, and you can check out http://www.artscape.co.za for run details.

1808 – Theatre Review

When some enteprising town planner finished his busy day and looked proudly at his city, Cape Town, did he one day envisage that scores of well meaning and otherwise moral citizens would be fuelled with hatred towards him? Did he know that there would never be available parking in the city, and that people would be doomed to circle for hours, years, decades trying to find a parking spot, especially around Adderley Street?

Did he know that the building that stood at the top of Adderley Street where it meets the Cape Gardens, right by the Cathedral would be a Slave Lodge? Not that it is anymore, what with the abolition of slavery,  many, many years ago, despite what several of my bosses have indicated through their attitudes towards me.

I didn’t know there was a Slave Lodge there, or that there even was a Slave Lodge in Cape Town. I sort of knew slavery happened in South Africa many years ago, but until seeing 1808, I wouldn’t have been able to say anything more than that.

Enter Myer Taub. Doctor of Drama. Officially. Like Ross from Friends. Since becoming a doctor, he’s been commissioned by Iziko, an organisation that I didn’t know existed, but which controls a great deal of the historic sites around Cape Town, to revitalise these sites through the use of drama.

Hustling down to the Slave Lodge, nearly late due to the parking conundrum, I ran into an audience moving towards the back entrance. I slipped into them slapping hands and saying hello to those I knew, as we moved around the corner and drew slowly to a halt.

A sweet voice suddenly stilled the chaos of the backstreet as an angel from the past began to sing. Passers-by stopped and stared; her voice and prescence strange and haunting, unusual and beautiful, as she paused to whisper strange nothings into the occasional ear, before indicating alluringly that we should follow her through the back door.

Having seen a few of Myer’s pieces, I knew what to expect, sort of, however most of the audience, especially the passers-by who had followed the crowd in, certainly did not. Myer breaks style and convention, and what you witness is an inverted theatre experience. His work is site specific, and travels through the venue, illuminating particular areas, in particular ways.

Sometimes we’ll witness a realistic scene between two slaves, or perhaps it’s a slave’s nightmare, or perhaps a slave will stand in the centre of the courtyard on the top of a well, and speak to us as though we were his fellow slaves, powerfully convincing us to join his revolt, or perhaps one of the actors will narrate some of the history of Slaves in South Africa, or even begin to play themselves, questioning the meaning of what it is to re-activate this space… Are we meant to be glorifying slavery? How do we truly remember our ancient past? Another actor sadly places two buckets of water connected by a staff across her shoulders; and she moves off slumped and despaired as we follow with her through the venue.

“Magical,” says the man next to me, a black man in his thirties, probably middle-management somewhere, who was simply walking past when he was drawn in off the street. “I have things to do, but I’m enchanted, enchanted,” he repeats walking on.

Myer, through repetition and practise, is starting to master this style. He’s creating good images in site specific locations, which is always pleasing and interesting to watch. He’s found a way to morph the various styles he’s working in to fit environments, and convey the right amount of drama, information, and beauty to the audience, although his work still has the ability to grow, particularly in terms of what the actual characters say when they’re speaking.

He’s workshopped these productions, growing it with the actors, and with informed historians, allowing it to develop naturally into it’s final pieces. In my opinion though, he needs to get a bit more hands on towards the end of the workshop by editing and changing dialogues and monologues. Sometimes the text can be beautiful like a lyrical poem, but just as non-sensical. Already a strange range of styles, this runs the risk of alienating an audience during scenes, but fortunately each scene is short enough, and each shift is strange enough, to keep the audience involved and interested.

Standing in the final room, the entrance to the Slave Lodge, watching the three actors playing the slaves in their final scene, I looked up to notice a huge plaque on the wall. It says: “After the British Occupation of Cape Town and the 1807 abolition of slavery, the building became government offices and the first supreme court.” That reminded me of how the Constituional Court is built on the grounds of one of the more fearsome Apartheid prison. The cycles of history.

Myer’s work is succeeding and I think Iziko’s probably pretty happy with him. I’m inadvertantly learning about the history of Cape Town and it’s buildings simply by supporting progressive theatre. And seriously, it’s cool to know a little bit about history, especially in SA when there’s far more to our past then Apartheid, and post-Apartheid jazz. Watch out for more of these historical wanderings as he revitalizes the city.

The performance featured Bianca Mannie, David Johnson and Mark Johnson, was directed by Myer Taub, who was assisted by designer Angela Nemov and her design team.

H.O.T.T. Theatre Review

“Sweet Mother of Mary,” I raged as I frantically waved my cellphone in the air, cursing the GPS function that’s so incredibly useful until the damn American spy sattelites can’t find you, and your phone searches for that connection, leaving you lost and in crisis. I was bouncing along the back alleys of Observatory, that den of inequity, where students and hippies and the seedy underbelly of polite society lurk, trying to find the Katilist, a new theatre venue, rushing against the clock to arrive in time.

Doing what any law-breaking citizen would do, I use my cellphone for it’s original function, ie to phone someone, in this case Sjaka Septembir, the director of H.O.T.T. the show I’m trying to catch. I demand better directions, one hand on the steering wheel, one foot on the accelerator, and one beady eye on the side of the road watching out for potential hi-jackers.

If you go down Lower Main Road Observatory, away from the main strip, straight until you see Scott road, turn left into Scott road, and stop immediately. On your left is the venue.

My companion and I dash out of my car, observing the graffitied wall, that apparently houses this venue, and quickly push open the door only to discover what seems to be a deserted and stark back area. We hesitate, knowing we’re running out of time, and pick the only forward direction, which is up a set of steps open to the air. It feels like we’re sneaking into the back of someone’s flat, but quickly do so, only to find another door, this one locked and closed. It seems to be the venue’s though, because it has posters on it.

Hesitantly we ring the doorbell – it’s 8:15 exactly, the starting time of the show, so maybe we’re late and the entrance is closed? And is this even the venue? We ring the bell anyway.

The door swings open to reveal a really nice theatre lobby. The outside of this venue is craggy and scary and gritty but inside is warm and charming and enticing, which reminds me of this fat chick I met once, but that’s another story.

An usher rushes us up the stairs and into the theatre space; the show’s already started and in a great breach of theatre etiquette we enter anyway and quietly find seats.

Walking in late to a theatre show is always tricky, because sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what the hell is going on, and I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what the hell was going on, until I realised, oh, there is no plot or narrative. That explains it.

Once I had established that it was easy to figure out what this show was all about. It’s one man communicating to the audience thoughts, opinions and attitudes surrounding the concept of love, women, heartbreak and dating. Sure, as a theme it might sound as lame as a one legged man doing bad stand up comedy, but the actual production was a lot cooler than that.

It consisted of four divergent elements that all explicated the themes in radically different ways. These aspects were spoken word, song, physical movement, and stand up comedy. The spoken word rocked, Nkosinathi Gaar handling this text excellently, exuding confidence and cool, delivering it in that classic American spoken word style. If song is your thing, his voice is pretty good, and some of his (completely unaccompanied pieces) are most enjoyable. Clearly that little imp also has extremely good control of both body and voice, and for those into physical movement there are some great sequences involving an overlarge table, and lots of jumping, leaping and banging. The stand up comedy element was the only unsuccessful part of this smorgasbord of artworks, but thankfully it’s not cringe worthy, and you’re more than willing to listen to these parts as it rushes from style to style, constantly throwing new artforms in your face.

On that note though, the major flaw of the piece is that the divergent elements aren’t fused effectively into a cohesive whole, smoothly moving from one to the other, so even though each moment works, the sequence ends up being a bit jagged and chaotic; and of course if you’re looking for a realist plot, where an identifiable human with a specific flaw encounters a series of events and obstacles that deepens his personality and allows him to develop the manly fortitude and strength to overcome his personal flaw in order to achieve his objective and live happily ever after with his one true love, then this isn’t the piece for you; so remember it’s thematically driven, and not narratively so.

The highlight though, is the spoken word, and if that’s your vibe, the show’s worth it, and of course if you’re into short, coloured men with Lenny Krawitz hair and good bone structure, then stick around after the show, get a drink, and maybe try and cop a feel of this talented performer’s bottom.

My companion and I didn’t do this, but instead got drunk at Rolling Stones and talked about all the different people we had made out with in Rolling Stones over the years, and then moved onto the Death of Theatre and the importance of marketting, and of not being able to have proper marketting budgets, and of things that should be seen and supported, and played some pool.

H.O.T.T’s a light piece of work and if you’re looking for something fun to do as a date, head on down to the Katilist in Observatory, at 8:15 pm, its R55 and runs till the 1 November and catch it.

Afrika Burns: Destination Tankwa Town

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Afrika Burns

Sweet Jesus it’s a goddamn Dr Seuss Parallel Universe out there! It’s where there’s alien-like fauna on two metre high stems, their thin, long sausage dog heads bobbing gently in the wind; it’s the place with the Ego check-in Booth; it’s where the magical dryer-organ-flame thrower can be found, with its organ pipes extending out of the top of the dryer, spitting half-metre flames out of the pipes, playing music in time to the music blasting from the nearby desert tent!

It’s where a dark demonic idol straight from the world of Diablo, constructed of twisted wire and wood sits alone away from the community stark against the horizon, homage to some forgotten God… erected by a man, found to be wearing a kilt and named Buffy… A place where glowing balls drifting eerily through the night air are considered, in terms of how weird is actually weird, a mere humdrum commonality.

It’s the land of the strange… from the attitude of the people, the radical self reliance and gift mindset combination; to the location, that burning hot Karoo desert; to the strange and unusual giant structures built within a massive circle of land; to the private and public transport systems; to the ring of camped neighbourhoods that surround the massive inner circle with the half-kilometer diameter; to the distant infinite environment; it’s all weird all of the time.

On the second afternoon I see two white giants crossing through the desert haze, each of them standing nearly the height of three men, as they walk gracefully through the barren landscape. Between their legs, two weary humans are their beating hearts. The names of the giants are Delilah and Mr V.

They reach the centre of the centre where I sit in the shade cast by The Wish, the centre-piece, the giant wooden heart of the centre’s centre.

The two giant white puppets duck under one of the entrances to the Wish, the entrance to the huge white wooden dome tall enough for a mortal man, but these beautiful monstrosities must stoop and bend in order to enter. Inside the Wish, the puppets seem small, dwarfed by the dome’s massive structure, which reaches perhaps slightly less than the height of three of these white giants standing head on feet.

Standing inside the Wish is an awesome experience. It’s a massive dome constructed in the heart of the Afrika Burns community, reaching several stories high, and made out of massive wooden circles, containing small wooden circles of various sizes overlapping and interweaving like some kind of candy induced nightmare, beautiful in the sunlight, and by night, a goddamn alien Egg Pod deposited in the Heart of the Land.

But staring at its open ceiling is too much for Delilah, and as she looks upwards, perhaps overwhelmed by the moment’s beauty, cracks her back, and dies in the dome as five startled onlookers watch her crash gracefully to the ground.

A moment of silence. Danny Popper’s voice, her creator and heart, announcing her death, confirming it, damning her existence. And she is picked up and they leave, Mr V, her white giant soul mate walking away, sadly, disappearing into the distance, as Delilah’s giant corpse is carried alongside him by two small humans. They move into the distance, past the Ego Booth, past the Wooden Postbox, and past the Door of Gratitude back towards camp White Elephant. Or perhaps it’s the Door of Hope they walked past. I’m not sure from this distance. And as two pretty girls on bicycles careen across the landscape, their fairy wings jingling on their backs, in the distance I hear the sound of an anvil being blown up into the air. Yes.

Later I caught Mr V lying passed out drunkenly on a car, depressed into unconsciousness, the corpse of Delilah lying at his feet, but at dawn, under Popper’s divine guidance, she was reborn, and the two of them would cross the landscape again…

Afrika Burns, baby, it’s Tankwa Town, it’s in the desert and it’s awesomalicious. If you missed this one, don’t miss the next. That’s if you’ve got the balls to survive, tough guy.

It’s out in the Tankwa Karoo, out there under the anvil hot landscape, where the sun’s angry hammer beats down relentlessly from above, and the wind likes to sucker punch you in the chin from the side. At times it’ll course, howling, whisking the dry dusty sand into dust devils that whirl through the landscape, smashing into tents and blasting into people. At night it’s cold, you need a jacket and in the day you better be able to find some life saving shade. Bring 5 litres of water for each day that you’re there; a man can die out there in the desert. You can’t buy anything. Not beer, boerewors rolls or cigarettes. Nada. If you do not bring what you need to survive three or four days in the desert, then you’re going to have to become a vagrant moving through campsite to campsite, surviving off gifts.

It’s a gift economy, which won’t make much sense to the Venture Capitalist, and even though the Communists might find it laudable, they’d still scoff at the economic viability of it all. How a gift economy works is this: people are encouraged to provide gifts to people if they can, but are not required to do so. Different people take that concept to different strengths. Some might just pool money in order to purchase communal food for large campsites; perhaps it’s gifting a service, such as helping build someone else’s art piece or erecting the tents of strangers. And so it was, from the gifting of sweets to the gifting of cocktail bars to the gifting of an inter-camp and ‘default’ world postal services to the gifting a goddamn tractor drawn public transport system.

If it’s a gift, no matter how big or how small, it’s appreciated and encouraged. Some dude appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared, briefly existing just long enough to hand me a pear when I was far away from my campsite, starving and thirsty, and maybe saved my life.

The environment is harsh, so naturally, the campsites tend to be solid and coherent, causing tent neighbourhoods to flourish and survive, many so comfortable you could spend your entire time there just chilling in the ‘hood, making friends and hanging out. Except you can’t, because people keep on walking in wild eyed and jabbering, unable to stop spewing the word awesome from their lips, eyes frantic with religosity as they tell you of weird sight after another, each one stranger then the next. You can’t keep on sitting. You need to explore. You need to get out into the massive inner circle of Art that Tankwa Town surrounds.

Walking out from 8-ish street and into Binnekring, the dirt road that circles the inner circle, one realizes that Tankwa Town really is a village. In the distance you can see the various neighbourhoods ringing the circle; the tractor and its trailers full of people; the pimped out Mad Max style cars that slowly cruise by at the 20 km per hour speed limit, the scattered walking pedestrians and the occasional bicyclist cycling past. And of course the massive art works that rise out of the desert floor. Directly opposite me at the far end of the circle stands the San Clan, the official totem of the tribe, the Afrika Burns equivalent of the Burning Man’s Burning Man, made small by the distance. The dome, The Wish, rising out of the circle’s centre. To the far right, the two story Post Office and near it the red telephone booth freestanding in that rocky desert ground. The Triple Bypass, sleeping in the day, waiting for the night to be full of fire and fury and beauty.

To the left Camp Vuvuzela is clear, with its giant Mielie tree, made of thousands of re-cycled plastic bottles, each individual corn wired with an LED that causes the three giant cobs to flash to the music that plays from its DJ tent. The tent itself being fronted by two giant Vuvuzela’s each perhaps five metres high, that have a candle like flame rising out of them at certain points in the evening, that’ll burst with a whooph loud enough to hear from a quarter of a kilometer away, shooting fire into the night sky. The three doorways that stand in the desert. The smaller artworks made small by distance and made beautiful by the starkness of the desert landscape, isolating and framing each piece. Even the pedestrians and cyclists become art works framed in this landscape, dressed strangely as giraffes or bees or pixies or in drag.

There were a lot of men dressed in dresses, probably because Angela Nemov’s gift Costume Shop didn’t have that much male clothing, so every time a guy walked in, he walked out a little more like a girl.

Walking past the cardboard tree village that grows from our neighbour’s camp, we see small neon flowers have sprouted from the desert floor during the night. We walk towards them to see what art piece will be revealed, and it’s a small garden of neon orange and purple flowers surrounding macabre dried animal bones laid out in the shape of a heart.

“It’s my favourite thing so far, except for the flowers,” points out one of my companions.

“But the flowers is what drew us to it,” points out another.

We walk along past the anvils. I keep on missing this one. Apparently how it works is the smaller anvil is placed on top of the bigger one and a piece of dynamite is placed between them. Then the dynamite is lit and the lighter runs like hell to get out of the Radius of Death circle drawn in the sand around it. Awesome. We race through the desert after getting chased by fist-sized spiders that want to catch our shade.

“Insects chasing you. Anvils. It’s just not safe out here,” happily clamours one of my walking companions.

And past the giant chess board and scrabble, where we spend some time finding a good move for blue, before adding it to the move roster, but by now Jonx’s camera batteries are dying, and he’s got a connection at Desert Rose Saloon who can charge it, so we take the shortcut off the road and walk as the crow flies through the inner circle. Past the Wish and stop at a strange circle of Gnomes that have gathered together to sacrifice one of their kin. They all stare inwards at another Gnome tied down to a small wooden altar, piled with wood, and ready to burn and be sacrificed to some arcane Gnomish Gods.

Through the baloon forest, we see the giant cactus rising above the small tent town neighbourhood which hosts The Desert Rose Saloon, and behind the Saloon, the desert stretches out towards the distant mountains.

Pushing through the swing doors we enter the Desert Rose Saloon, easily the best Themed Camp, where a man plays a sax in underwear, which I later find out to be his girlfriend’s, supported by his band.

Just your run of the mill Afrika Burns surreality.

Later when I make the walk back to White Elephant, my neighbourhood, I stop to open a chest that contains a book asking me to please write in it. Obligingly, I do. Then a companion and I decide to take the double wheeled walking contraption that we’ve seen go past a few times for a spin. Essentially it’s made of two giant hamsters wheels, big enough for a large man to stand inside of and walk in, except I operate the device like a retard and find myself hanging upside down pressing my feet into the top of the wheel and my hands into the bottom. The wheel stops turning and I’m stuck. I gently drop myself onto my shoulder and roll off to the side feeling like an idiot, but my companion smiles clapping me on the shoulder, laughing with no menace.

When I’m chilling on a hammock later I notice something flying through the air, shimmery in the desert heat. Frisbee? No, too wobbly. A boomerang? It cuts a graceful arc and is gently caught by a small silhouette in the distance. Is that guy throwing it to himself? Is that possible?

He launches it and at first it seems like its growing straight, but after maybe a hundred metres or more, it begins to curve in the air, gracefully charting out a massive aerial circle, spanning a great distance and then slowly arcing back, gently returning to the distant man’s waiting hand.

I’ve never seen that done properly before.

And then a man came out, and the first man started teaching the second man how to throw a boomerang properly. And then I’m distracted when a band of well… suited storytellers, appear and read one or two short stories from well known books to the sound of a Tibetan Meditation Bowl and other eerie discordant accompaniments, before disappearing into the desert haze in search of more people to Gift.

Everything that happens burns briefly and dies. There is so much happening all the time. New works popping into existence all over the desert. Moving works that are easy to miss and disappear quickly. Nearly everything is good. And none of the artists are making money or being paid; no one is making money or being paid here; it’s all done in the name of Cool, and that’s a great God to worship.

The worship of the God of Cool reaches its climax on Saturday evening when Tankwa Town’s totem, the San Clan himself, is burnt to the ground. The San Clan seems about seven stories tall and consists of a several headed, many legged creature with a thick trunk torso… although from up close it reminded me of nothing more than a few angry undead skeleton warriors attempting to climb out of a giant ice-cream cone. Apparently bees had infested its head and we felt sad that they were going to get smoked out when that sucker went up in smoke.

It lit up the night like the day. The whole Afrika Burns community was revealed under that burning glare; I’ve never ever seen anything so big on fire. An atomic bomb dropped in the desert. A community worshipping this God of Cool. In the night sky the hundreds of Chinese Lamps form new stars in the firmament. We worship and rejoice.