By Presley Chweneyagae and Paul Grootboom
Directed by Paul Grootboom
LIFE IS HARD - DEATH IS EASY....
A crime thriller revolving around the gritty reality of South African life. A schoolgirl flees her home after a lifetime of squabbling and abuse, only to find solace in the arms of a gangster who believes life's ills can be solved with violence.
Elsewhere, a father brutalises his son who is having an affair with a shebeen owner. And, on the fringes of the township a serial killer is on the loose......
Welcome to the gritty, visceral world of Township Stories, where life is cheap and death is, too often, the only answer.
Underscored by music from Louis Armstrong, Paul Simon, Tracy Chapman, Norah Jones, as well as kwaito and traditional songs, Township Stories takes you on an emotional rollercoaster through the sordid underbelly of contemporary urban life.
Co written by Paul Grootboom - "the Township Tarantino" - and Presley Chweneyagae, who stars in the Oscar-winning movie, Tsotsi, Township Stories, is a filmic nail-biting thriller, an unexpurgated take on life in South Africa today.
Read an extract of The New Statesman review by Rosie Millard
A township called malice
by Rosie Millard, The New Statesman, 30 october 2006
The brutal truth of life in South Africa is played out superbly in a fast-paced show Township Stories Theatre Royal, Stratford East.
....Sixteen actors play 20 characters whose lives, loves and boozing interweave frantically over . . . what? Twenty years? Nine months? Maybe both. The sound of loud laughter, gunshots and the double curse of alcohol and extreme violence courses through it all. Politics? This may be post-apartheid South Africa, but no one here is interested in Mandela, in Mbeki, in white people, in "the big picture".
What Grootboom is showing us, of course, is very much the big picture. It's just a visceral, personal one. He kicks off with a murder, which is quickly followed by sex, booze, birth, rape, abortion, incest and serial killing, depicted by the cast with non-stop energy to a thrilling musical score that includes Simon and Garfunkel, Norah Jones, Kurt Weill and kwaito music. Even though the set is minimal, you can practically smell the oranges, the beer, the sweat and the dirt of the place. About his youthful experiences in Soweto, Grootboom has said: "It was a mixture of good and bad, but mostly bad." And here, without a doubt, he pulls no punches.
This is no nostalgia trip; in this anonymous place, there is no cosy community spirit, very little loyalty and absolutely no security. This is the story of an utterly lawless place where sex rushes beneath and around like a river. How did black South Africans cope, forcibly cooped up like this? The production has such authenticity, one feels it must come pretty close to telling the truth.
....It was one of those rare evenings where you forget you are watching actors playing invented roles. Township Stories is wholly engrossing, shocking and dire. Should you catch it, and I hope you do, you will have an evening that picks you up and carts you off to the dangerous centre of the brutal, ugly and frantic black South African urban experience, without so much as a backward glance.
WHAT THE PRESS SAYS
Lyn Gardner The Guardian:
"One of the most remarkable pieces of theatre to emerge from post-apartheid South Africa"
"A mixture of the most sophisticated and simplest kind of theatre, it is as messy and ragged as life itself"
"this extraordinary production so compelling, particularly in its use of music"
"Grootboom and Chweneyagae offer up these small-town losers ... in all their cracked and warped beauty"
Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman
"Shakespeare would have recognised the place, in other words; and not only for its horror and pity, but for its sheer vibrancy of life."
"a terrific 16-strong cast"
"a high-spirited and ferociously memorable show"
Neil Cooper, The Herald
"Grootboom & Chweneyagae's busy, messy bustle of a play is a darkly thrilling whirlwind so big it threatens to spill out of the auditorium"
Times: Tuesday 17 October to Saturday 11November 2006, 7.30pm
Matinee: 3pm, Saturday 11 November 2006
Prices: £18, £15, £12. Concessions - half price
Sign Interpreted performance with Ms Jacqui Beckford on Thursday 26th October at 7.30pm. The performance will be followed by a post show discussion.
Audio described performance with Ms Bridget Crowley on Thursday 2nd of November at 7.30pm.
