Cape Town theatre picks: September 24 2010

Staff Reporter

20 SEP 2010, 08:44

3 min read

Theatre lovers are in for a feast, in more ways than one.

If you are tantalised by the idea of enjoying a three-course meal with wine at a 400-metre dinner table set in Paarl’s Main Street, then head for this year’s Cultivara Arts Festival. Entertainment on the night includes popular tenors Jannie Moolman and Kevin Leo accompanied by the Frank Pietersen symphonic orchestra.

Timeless Encore, the main production on at the festival, is a musical extravaganza show with movie theme songs, romantic ballades and title tracks from great musicals. The performers include André Schwartz and divas Rina Hugo and Arina de Witt. Other productions on include: Cape Town City Ballet with a selection of classical masterpieces; Chris Chameleon and the trio of Kevin Leo, Danie Niehaus and Mathys Roets; comedians Casper de Vries and Shaleen Surtie-Richards. On a classical note, there is Italian baroque from Monteverdi as well as representative works from Vivaldi and Handel.
Until September 26. At various venues throughout Paarl. Bookings can be done online at www.cultivaria.com or Tel: 021 8729754.

Originally directed by Neville Engelbracht in 2008 and premièred at the National Arts Festival, now with an all new cast and under the direction of Fatima Dike, the Siyasanga Cape Town Theatre Company presents The Quiet Violence of Dreams, an adaptation for stage of K. Sello Duiker’s novel by Ashraf Johaardien.

It tells the story of Tshepo, who beneath his nonchalant and naïve disposition is the prisoner of a psychosis which started early in his life. Despite his childhood trauma, he is a man with a powerful spiritual grace, a poet, who glimpses the redemption of love even as he seems to grasp at it purposelessly. The cast features Chris Gxalaba, Fikile Mahola, Chiedza Mhende, Richard Lothian, Lee Roodt and Pierre Malherbe. Designs are by Dicky Longhurst, with lighting by Alfred Rietmann and music selection by Mbulelo Samby.

Until October 2. Arena Theatre, Artscape Theatre Centre, Foreshore. Book at Computicket. Tel: 021 421 7695. Website: www.artscape.co.za

David Muller’s one-man play Imagining Einstein tracks the life and times of the great scientist from the age of five to his last years in Princeton. Einstein’s findings changed the world, not only physics. He was a curious man who could sit quietly in a noisy room and disappear into one of his thought experiments, or as he called them, Gedankenexperiments. He could let his hand guide the tiller of his sailing dinghy on the lakes of Switzerland, Berlin or Princeton, New Jersey while his mind would go into the depths of science and discover theories that later were proven correct. With his huge zest for life, the play takes the audience through a journey of inspiration and discovery, includng his annus mirabilis (miracle year), when he published four papers including those on the Photoelectric Effect, the Brownian Motion, Theory of Special Relativity and a short one from which came the equation E = MC2.

Until September 25. Kalk Bay Theatre, 52 Main Road, Kalk Bay. Book at: Tel: 073 220 5430. Website: www.kbt.co.za.