Theatre
The absolutely superb actor Tony Miyambo brings Red Peter back to the stage in Kafka’s Ape, an adaptation of Franz Kafka’s A Report For An Academy, in which the Ape presents himself as a civilised being after being captured and trained. Tony performed this play at the National Arts Festival in 2019 and the applause went on so long he had to take two encores before the audience would let him leave. Mike Loewe, reviewing in The Critter, said: “It is disturbing, nay, excruciating to watch Miyambo’s apelike behaviour, his craving to return to use all fours, his twirling hand gestures never giving up on his desire to be back brachiating, all the snorks, and grunts, the swinging on hind quarters, as his story is told in the most erudite and gentlemanly style.” Presciently, Loewe saw the extension from colonial conquest to capitalist dominion: “Are we humans, the broad mass, the next to be predated upon by the one percenters, sent to wage war and be slain by the thousands in the pursuit of dubious gain, or worked to death by the oligarch’s of capital?” With Trump and his tech bros eyeing us as the apes to the harvested, Kafka’s Ape was never more relevant. Watch it at The Baxter Studio theatre where it plays at 8pm until 12 April. Tickets on Webtickets range from R110 to R200.
Another flawless play at The Baxter this month, this time in the Flipside theatre, is Isidlamlilo/The Fire Eater. We watched it in Makhanda in 2022 and were spellbound. This electrifying one-woman show created by award-winning theatre-maker Neil Coppen and actor Mpume Mthombeni remind us what it cost, as a country, to get to where we are now, which is so far from where we were, yet also hardly any distance at all. Mthombeni plays an aged female assassin who reigned in the blood-soaked streets and fields of KwaZulu-Natal in the early 90s. Now a grandmother, we wrote on The Critter how, in a room in a women’s hostel in Umlazi, Durban, she appeals to God. “We are spellbound witnesses to her unflinching testimony … Mpume Mthombeni as Zenzile Maseko aka Isidlamlilo rings every note true. From her first word until the last, there is no doubt: she is the real thing. This includes the lack of bitterness despite the betrayals wrought upon her. A humbling realisation to those of us apt to complain at every turn.” This is impeccable theatre. You must see it during its run from 9 to 19 April. The curtains open at 7.30pm with matinees at 2pm. Tickets cost between R150 and R250 through Webtickets.
A killer is on the loose. The city is a powder keg. A rising-star politician is weighing the cost of betrayal. A mother searches for her son in a bloody netherworld. All of hell’s bells toll when Mrs. Mitchell Comes To Town in acclaimed playwright Louis Viljoen’s latest play, Mrs Mitchell Comes To Town. Starring Jenny Stead and Aidan Scott, shows are at 7.30pm with Saturday matinees at 4.30pm. Tickets cost between R140 and R180 through Webtickets.
Music
The Solms-Delta Oesfees went quiet during Covid times, but the vastrap jol is back to celebrate the harvest, just go easy on the Autumn Harvest ek sê. It’s a chance for the wine farm workers to show off their dance and music alongside established musos such as Valiant Swart, Koos Kombuis, Emo Adams, Nick Turner, and others. We went sometime in the twenty-teens and it was lekka. It’s all day affair starting at 10am, and is happening again this Saturday 29 March. Tickets cost R200 via Plankton, or go to the Solms-Delta website, solmsdelta.co Children under 12-years-old get in free of charge.
If you don’t want to do a whole day thing out in the winelands, you can catch the king of the Zulu blues, Madala Kunene, at Curiocity (153 Main Rd, Green Point) on 29 March from 7pm (music starts at 8). Tickets cost R250.
In ‘I’d rather be alone’, Luna Paige bears comparison with PJ Harvey, yet with a touch of vaudeville in the timbre of her voice amidst the Afrikaans country blues. There’s also Nick Turner, who is kinda of a male version of Luna when he sings in Afrikaans, but with him there’s an echo of David Kramer. Divine Mahara also has a melancholy rhythm with a 1940s aesthetic in his voice and presentation setting off Avril Mkansi’s angelic Afro-art-rock. Avril also has that vaudeville element as her background is musical theatre. Nicely curated. They’re all playing, together with Stanley Sibande, on what’s promising to be a mellow musical afternoon at The Homestead in Hout Bay on Sunday 30 March. Unlike the larny wine farm type gigs where you have to buy overpriced food from on-site vendors, this is a bring your own picnic affair, along with blanket and lawn chair. It’s almost like being thrown back into the ‘90s. Tickets for Big Folk Africa just R150 online at Webtickets, or R200 at the gate. Music starts at 3pm.
The Crypt Jazz Club is resurrected from the dead. It would be hard to pick a better gig to mark their return: the great horn player Sisonke Xonti’s uGaba Experience heats up the stage with a two-hour performance of known tunes as well as new material. The renowned saxophonist is joined by Yonela Mnana (Keys), Steve De Souza (Bass), Kevin Gibson (Keys) and a surprise guest. Tickets are R200 on Quicket or R250 at the door. Be there at 7 for 7.30pm on Friday 4 April.
Check out one of the new generation of guitar plucking singer songwriters in the form of 19-year-old Kai Scott who is playing at the Obscene Parrot (1117Lower Main Road, Obs) on 5 April. He sounds like he just stepped out of the mid-60s after a time machine mixed him into Donovan and Syd Barret. Tickets R50 on Quicket and R80 at the door. Music starts at 7pm.
Watershed, the rock band that brought us Indigo Girl, that highly popular advertising jingle of a pop song, are doing a mini tour of South Africa to mark their 24th anniversary of being a band. Their Cape Town leg will be a the Brass Bell on Saturday 19 April. For fans, they’ve got a new album coming out. Music starts at 5pm and they play until 8pm. Tickets cost R250 on Quicket.
Weeping, a single recorded in 1987 by Bright Blue, is among the most iconic – and likely the most poetic – anti-apartheid song written by a white guy playing in a band of white guys. They split up in the early 90s, and founding member Dan Heymann moved to New York. We accepted we would never see them play again but it seems they had other plans, still collaborating online and recording the occasional new song and getting together in one place to have another reunion gig. This time they are, fittingly at the Brass Bell on Saturday 26 April. Doors open at 5pm, music starts at 6-ish. Tickets are R300 on Quicket.