Durban theatre picks: January 28 2011

There’s an eclectic mix of theatre productions on offer this week.

• Mel Miller has lost none of the acerbic edge that characterises his truculent deadpan delivery. On the contrary, if anything he has, like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, become more caustic and excoriating than ever which is good news for fans of comedy of the gritty, gravelly variety. Miller, who first cautiously treaded the boards in 1963 as a folk musician but quickly realised that audiences were far more appreciative of his improvised between-song banter than the songs themselves and thus was a career in comedy born. In a career now nudging fifty years, Miller has steadily gone from strength to strength and recently enjoyed a sell-out season at Montecasino’s massive Teatro Theatre – a feat unparalleled since The Lion King played there. Now Durban audiences have the luxury of revelling in the same Big Fat Comedy Show in a far more intimate setting.

  Heritage Theatre, Westville. Until January 30. Tickets, which include a delicious two-course meal, are R190 Friday and Saturday and at 7pm and R165 on Sunday at 12.30pm. Booking is essential. Tel: 031 765 4197 Visit www.heritagetheatre.co.za

• The acclaimed one-hander Blood Orange, written and performed by Craig Morris and directed by Greig Coetzee, is the culmination of Morris’ Form 4 Physical Theatre Residency at St Anne’s Diocesans Theatre. The forms an important aspect of the residency as the girls get to see their teacher as a professional performer revealing the very skills and expertise that he teaches in their residency classes. Descibed as a South African Catcher In The Rye, Blood Orange is the story of Gecko, a boy who has an oblique, out-of-sync way of seeing the world; his childhood among the green hills of Natal and of his jagged school days in the Cape where the Simonsberg drinks the Blood Orange sun at dusk. James Dean and Wilbur Smith have two-bit parts in this drama that begins with man landing on the moon and ends with Mandela riding a mermaid to freedom.
  
  The Theatre, St Anne’s College. One performance only. Thursday February 3 at 7.30pm. Tickets are R60 with booking essential. Tel: 033 343 6100

• The Barnyard Theatre at Gateway takes Durbanites tripping back in time to the 1970s when Nite Fever lights up its hi-tech stage this month and the next. Despite the 70s supposedly sounding the death-knell of sixties idealism (to quote Danny’s immortal line in Withnail & I: ‘They’re selling hippie-wigs in Woolworths man. It’s the end of an era. And we have failed to paint it black”), it also gave birth to the defiance of disco with its mantra of I Will Survive and things started to look up as the world donned platform boots, bathed under the lights of mirrorballs and discovered the plastic pleasure of synthesisers and drum machines. The 1970s became a rollercoaster ride of cosmetic culture whose defining moments were the introduction of the VCR; the death of Elvis; the first Star Wars movie; Sony’s Walkman and whose soundtrack was provided by the discoliciousness of The Bee Gees, ABBA, The Village People, Rod Stewart and Boney M and the soul-funk of Stevie Wonder, The Jackson Five, Kool & The Gang and Showaddywaddy.

  The Barnyard Theatre, Gateway. February 1 to March 6. Tickets R125 per person from Wednesday to Saturday. R90 per person every Tuesday night and Sunday matinee. Tel: 031 566 3045 Email [email protected] Visit www.barnyardtheatres.co.za