New Fugard Theatre in District 6 set to take Cape Town by storm

Fugard Theatre

It isn't often that theatre stops you in your tracks, par­tic­u­larly when it's some­thing like Magic Flute, which admit­tedly I've seen per­formed ump­teen times in vari­ous guises but never to quite the aplomb with which it was being per­formed at the new Fugard Theatre in Cape Town (the last per­form­ance is on Saturday 6 March!)

And if you haven't heard about the Fugard Theatre, named in hon­our of Athol Fugard, one of our country's most iconic theatre influ­ences, it's because it has only just opened on the corner of Caledon and Harrington Streets in District Six, with its entrance off Buitenkant Street – in the gor­geous restored Sacks Futeran build­ing with a roof ter­race that has to-die-for views over Cape Town's city (you should see the rehearsal rooms on the second floor – any­one who has per­formed in theatre would drool) ...

And if you think the front looks like an old Gothic-style church, it is. It uses the ori­ginal con­greg­a­tional church hall as its Caledon Street entrance. The build­ing trans­formed two ware­house spaces, and the ori­ginal decom­mis­sioned church hall, into the theatre, rehearsal stu­dio, foyer space, dress­ing rooms and offices. The build­ing was ori­gin­ally a tex­tile and soft goods sup­plier and used for gen­er­a­tions by District Six seam­stresses and tail­ors and still sports the ori­ginal Saks Futeran & Co. legend.

Fugard Theatre

The 12^th of February arrived and left with little dent on the hori­zon, des­pite an open­ing night's per­form­ance that included the likes of Athol Fugard him­self, Trevor Manuel (the new theatre's pat­ron), a pleth­ora of cab­inet min­is­ters, and my per­sonal favour­ite, the actor Alan Rickman (whilst his most fam­ous role might have been Professor Snape in the Harry Potter series, I've loved him in the likes of Anthony Minghella's Truly Madly Deeply and other films like Dogma).

But this blog isn't about Alan Rickman. It's about a new theatre for Cape Town at a time that theatre struggles to put bums on seats. It's a theatre that is also home to the Isango Portobello Company, the com­pany who up until now have been rehears­ing in Athlone and whom we best remem­ber for their film pro­duc­tion of U-Carmen Ekhayelitsha. They're a Cape Town based theatre com­pany regarded as the largest black theatre com­pany in the world, with a num­ber of their mem­bers drawn from the town­ships around the city. A com­pany that is shap­ing theatre, not only in South Africa, but through­out the world.

The com­pany set off the open­ing of the Fugard Theatre with a run of The Magic Flute – Impempe Yomlingo, a pro­duc­tion that not only won the Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival for their sell-out at the Young Vic and Duke of York's run in 2008, but then went on to play in the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and the Luxor Theatre in Rotterdam. They've spe­cial­ised in re-imagining clas­sics with an African set­ting, and cre­at­ing new work that is rel­ev­ant to South Africa.

Fugard Theatre

The open­ing sea­son at the new Fugard Theatre also includes per­form­ances of of Isango Portobello's The Mysteries – Yiimimangaliso, and the world premier of Athol Fugard's new­est play The Train Driver, which the 78 year old has also dir­ec­ted, and is due to grace the stage from March 19^th.

If this isn't a sea­son about which to get excited, then I don't know what will excite South African audi­ences. As one of my friends was heard to com­ment: 'where else could one pull off Magic Flute in which Papageno's flute solo is played on a trum­pet, and get away with it to such a degree that it actu­ally worked?' Not only is the flute usurped but Mozart's score has been trans­posed for an orches­tra of marimbas.

And the Fugard Theatre is pretty intim­ate as well. It's only a 270 seater in the old ware­house where much of it has been gut­ted allow­ing for gor­geous acous­tics. By all accounts, the open­ing sea­son of Flute was chock-a-block, and the theatre func­tions on a first-come-first-served basis so that, if you're late, you end up on a line of bar stools along what would have been boxes in days of old, on the second and third floor bal­conies of the theatre. But all's fair in love and theatre, as the cost of the seats is more than reas­on­able. Just take this as a warn­ing to get there early, if you want a good seat. And don't expect the usual before cur­tain up milling that usu­ally takes place in a theatre — everyone's already got their bum on a space, and you'll have to do your 'who's here' cran­ing from your seat.

The theatre is bang in the centre of what is known as Cape Town's east side, a part of town that is also home to the City Hall, District Six Museum, and a col­lec­tion of unusual local clubs and res­taur­ants, book­shops and an odd assort­ment of cloth­ing fact­ory shops.

Now a troupe of theatre per­formers, who finally have a per­form­ance venue in their home town, find them­selves but a block away from Grand Parade and cent­ral sta­tion, mak­ing many of their jour­neys back to the town­ships pretty easy. And it's an option for theatre goers too.

To book tick­ets for the open­ing sea­son at The Fugard, phone the box office on 021 461 4554 or visit http://www.thefugard.com/

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