SPEAKING GENERALLY
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“OUT OF TIME” & “THE BEST MAN’S SPEECH”
add a commentfrom October 10 to November 17 @ 20h30 [doors open 18h45] with Louw Venter directed by Rob van Vuuren
Ticket prices :
3 course meal & theatre ticket – R220/200 p.p. [Please arrive by 18h45 / 19h00]
Pasta and theatre ticket – R130 p.p. [Please arrive by 18h45 / 19h00]
Show only [Wed/Thurs] – R90 p.p [Please arrive by 20h00 / 20h10]
Show only [Fri/Sat] – R100 p.p. [Please arrive by 20h00 / 20h10]
On opening nights only [unless otherwise stated] a 2 for 1 special is offered for tickets including a meal and the show.
These 2 shows will run in tandem – the exact dates for each are as follows ~
“OUT OF TIME” – October 10, 18, 19, 26 & 27
“THE BEST MAN’S SPEECH” – October 12, 13, 17, 20, 21, 24, 25, 28 & 31 and November 01, 02, 08, 09 10, 14, 15, 16 & 17
“OUT OF TIME”
Written and Performed by Louw Venter : Directed by Rob van Vuuren : Sound Design by Gary Thomas : Cinematographer by Leon Jacobs : Set Design by Kelly Gough : Additional Artwork by Louw Venter
The story of Lukas Nel, who is killed in a freak fall during a scuffle with his brother. He can see the instant of his death playing out endlessly in front of him like a video loop. There is nothing he can do about it – he is about to fall and die. He is a spectator to the horror just like everyone else. Frustrated, he begins a one-sided conversation with his son, who he can also see in the scene playing out before him. Lukas attempts to tell his son about their separate and combined histories, morality and love in stories filled with humour, pain, and pathos.
“Out of Time” is a very personal piece for Venter, who began to explore issues surrounding his own mortality after the birth of his children. Being a parent gave rise to fears and wonder about what would happen to his children if they were left behind, ultimately resulting in the stream of thought-provoking reflections within the play.
“THE BEST MAN’S SPEECH”
Written and Performed by Louw Venter : Directed by Rob van Vuuren
PG 16+ [language]
Fresh from a highly successful Grahamstown Festival run; the comedic one man show “THE BEST MAN’S SPEECH” returns to Cape Town for a month long run at KBT. Critically acclaimed, and popular with audiences throughout SA, “THE BEST MAN’S SPEECH” hones in on the stereo-typical traditional wedding and the potentially awkward role of the best man. Audiences soon realize that they are guests at the wedding as Venter takes the idea of ‘the best man’s speech gone wrong’ and amplifies its cringe-factor with exponential abandon.
Complete with cheap tuxedo’s, expensive flower arrangements and the compulsory wedding music mix, Louw Venter is everything a best man should be : witty, generous and able to sing. But he has a crush on the bride and enough champagne to sink the Titanic. A disastrous combination that creates an evening of pure hilarity. Personal memories and increasingly personal stories about the bride and groom, whom the best man has known since childhood, intrude into the polite banalities of the speech – and the whole exercise becomes funnier and funnier. This is a razor sharp comedy that explores the complexities of marriage, kids, parents, love, life and every unmentionable subject in between. The show positions itself somewhere between ambush theatre, stand-up comedy and the good ‘ol South African wedding reception.
ETHAN COOPER ELSLEY
add a commentBORN 14 SEPTEMBER 2007 @ 13h49
ARTSLINK ON SHARON & KBT
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Artslink.co.za
© 1997-2007
with acknowledgments and thanks
- Intimate Theatre succeeds in Kalk Bay
The Kalk Bay Theatre is a charming venue. I am greeted enthusiastically at the door, and given a card with my name on it, with which to book my chosen seat before making my way upstairs for a delicious dinner.
The kitchen is on one side of the restaurant, with goings-on in full view of diners. The restaurant is a sort of square mezzanine floor, with an open section in the middle from which one can look down, as if off a balcony, onto the stage area on the floor below – I could even watch “Sharon” setting up as I savoured my supper.
Having recently tried to cater for a very vegetarian friend, I was pleased to notice vegetarian options on the set menu. It offered a few choices, all of which appealed. On recommendation I chose the duck, which did not disappoint. Nor did the chilli-chocolate mousse dessert (and I was pleased to note, on behalf of another friend, the alternative option of cheese and biscuits). I liked the touch of being able to “plunge” my own coffee, even if the milk that came with it was not my preferred hot…
With her “big” hair and manicured red nails, Sharon looks every bit the part of a Beauty Salon owner, and with a conversation-style to match, she keeps her “clients” engaged and entertained. Having read beforehand about her interaction with her audience “clientele”, I was a bit concerned as to how she would work with the tiny audience a wintery Wednesday presented, but she managed well. And so did those “angel/my love/sweetpotatos” picked from the small crowd to receive her attentions. In fact, as she revealed the details of her life (in what could truly be described as “intimate” theatre), one of the women in front of me remarked that she kept wanting to talk back – to ask questions and further engage in the conversation.
Musical interludes serve as a very effective means of changing scenes and mood. The script is witty, with subtle speech errors causing ripples of laughter through those audience members quick enough to grasp them in the flurry of conversation, and she makes some pertinent points about life and politics. However it was her frailty that got my attention – the fragility of betrayal, emphasised by the vulnerability that a lack-of-hairdo seems to provide.
We can all be served by the reminder that everyone needs to be touched. Everyone needs to be complimented. Everyone needs someone to talk to. This show has what, in my opinion, good theatre needs – some entertainment value, and something to make one think a little…
Enjoyed by the men present, but a lovely idea for a girls’ night out!
Shez Sharon shows at the Kalk Bay Theatre until 15 September. [our addition -now extended to September 22]
Written and performed by Nicole Franco.
Directed by Megan Choritz.
Submitted by Fiona Gordon
THE REAL REVIEW ON SHARON
add a commentFROM THE REAL REVIEW
- Shez Sharon (Kalk Bay Theatre) until September 22
Reminiscent of Alan Bennett’s monologue series Talking Heads, Shez Sharon – written and performed by the dynamic Nicole Franco – is a tale that unfolds during a short but pivotal period in the life of an ordinary person who must through force of circumstance take stock of their lives. In Sharon’s case her greatest regret.
Sharon is a hairdresser who sees herself as a therapist motivated by love. As the folk etymology of the title suggests, Sharon’s style is informed more by experience than education. She is full of delightful, natural malapropisms – “a leper can’t change his spots” or the verdict on her failed marriage – we were like “chalky cheese”.
Monologues in which the audience is directly asked questions, often per force rhetorical, are difficult devices theatrically. Yet Franco succeeds unusually well, in part because she effortlessly engages with the audience to create a safe space in which we become her salon clients. (In most cases, the tiny adjustments she makes to her volunteers’ appearances produce significant improvements!) It is also because Franco is one of our most stylish actresses, which we read easily through the rather simple character of the stylist she portrays. This sets up a gentle comic irony.
Sharon’s story is original yet full of familiar echoes – the young mother who gets hooked on drugs, the family scattered by migration, the discrepancies in wealth and education, and the courageous woman who triumphs over herself and then succeeds in her own business. The flaws in her character, the contradiction between how she sees herself and what she reveals are all willingly forgivable.
This is a delightful and heartening comedy in a production well helmed by director Megan Choritz.
Saturday September 15 2007 08:34 AM
