From Merry Wives to Olórógun Caesar!
Over the past month, the TCC and its creative partners have been busy on the boards at the Drama Factory in Somerset West. First, Sue Diepeveen’s stage was turned once again into a film set, as Chantal Stanfield and Royston Stoffels added their performances of Falstaff and Mistress Page to the Speak Me A Speech repertoire. Then an ad-hoc Drama Factory Ensemble was formed to prepare for a rehearsed reading of Lekan Balogun’s play Olórógun Caesar!
Clockwise from top left: Royston Stoffels and Victor van Aswegen warm up with coffee; on set with Falstaff; Mistress Page weighs her options; Chantal Stanfield and Victor van Aswegen take a break from shooting; director and performer assess the previous take; Mistress Page is not impressed.
If you don’t know about Speak Me A Speech, watch this ten minute introduction to find out about an exciting new Shakespeare film project! The TCC has teamed up with Victor van Aswegen of CineSouth Studios and a team of brilliant South African actors, translators and scholars to produce a series of monologues delivered in South Africa’s many languages. The first two speeches filmed were Anelisa Phewa’s isiZulu Thomas More and Buhle Ngaba’s Porotia from Sol Plaatje’s Setswana translation of Julius Caesar. These have now been joined by a pair of speeches from The Merry Wives of Windsor in Afrikaans: Royston Stoffels’ Falstaff sends a cheeky WhatsApp message to Chantal Stanfield’s Mistress Page, and trouble starts brewing . . .
The four speeches will be screened as part of Shakespeare Towards An End, the TCC’s inaugural conference, co-hosted with the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa, which takes place at Spier Wine Farm this week (24-27 May).
Another treat in store for delegates at Shakespeare Towards An End is a rehearsed reading of scenes from TCC affiliate Lekan Balogun’s Olórógun Caesar! This play invokes Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in its engagement with nineteenth-century Yorùbá politics, specifically the Òyó Empire in the 1830s, as (in the playwright’s words) “a parable for contemporary Nigerian politics where factionalism (specifically tribal/ethnic bigotry) and economic malfeasance, among other factors, work against the integrity and security of the society”.
Delegates will visit an open rehearsal at the Drama Factory to watch Balogun and the cast develop their South African-Nigerian collaboration. If the weather holds, as it did when the ensemble visited Spier earlier this week, they will perform in a courtyard adjacent to the Riverhouse venue where the conference is being held. And plans are already being made to take Olórógun Caesar! to a wider audience.
The Drama Factory Ensemble visits Spier: Khanyiso Thakholi, Yongisipho Mtimkulu, Buhle Sam, Mava Silumko, Yamkela Ntendiyo, Sibusiso Maranxa.
Playwright meets cast: Khanyiso Thakholi, Sibusiso Maranxa, Lekan Balogun, Yongisipho Mtimkulu, Mava Silumko, Yamkela Ntendiyo, Buhle Sam.