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Dateline: 6th June, 2008
Sher and Kani in The Tempest A new production of William Shakespeare's last play, The Tempest, will open in Cape Town, South Africa at the Baxter Theatre Centre in January 2009. In February 2009 it transfers to the UK for a run at the RSC’s Courtyard Theatre, followed by a UK tour (dates and venues yet to be confirmed).
A co-poduction between the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Baxter Theatre Centre in Cape Town, this unique Tempest, filled with African ritual, music and dance, will feature a totally South African cast and will be created by three of South Africa’s foremost theatrical talents. The director Janice Honeyman (who directed the acclaimed RSC production of Athol Fugard’s Hello and Goodbye in 1988) brings two of the country’s most celebrated actors onstage together for the first time, Antony Sher as Prospero and John Kani as Caliban. Antony Sher said, “Janice Honeyman and I have been discussing this production for several years and I’m thrilled that the RSC is now making it happen, along with the Baxter, which is the leading theatre in CapeTown (my birthplace) and aguably in the whole of South Africa. In Shakespeare’s time, witchcraft and magic were part of society., but this is no longer true in the modern world, except in certain places. Our plan is to use African ritual to release the magic in the play. From a personal point of view, I’m extremely pleased to be working with Janice Honeyman again. She directed me in the RSC production of Fugard’s Hello and Goodbye. It’s also been a lifelong ambition of mine to be onstage with the legendary South African actor John Kani. So this feels like all my dreams coming true.” John Kani is an internationally recognised, multiple award-winning actor, director and playwright. His list of theatre credits includes Claudius in Baxter Theatre’s Hamlet which played in Stratford during the RSC’s Complete Works Festival as well as in South Africa, Driving Miss Daisy, Othello, The Blood Knot, The Island, Waiting for Godot, Playland, Duet for One, Sizwe Banzi is Dead and My Children! My Africa! The Island, which won the Toronto Theatre Award 2001 for Best Production, was co-written by Kani, Athol Fugard and Winston Ntshona – the same team also wrote Sizwe Banzi is Dead. He won the Best Actor Tony on Broadway for his performances in these plays. ‘What a pleasure,” says Kani. “I have the chance to make theatre with my dear friends Mannie, Janice and Tony and get to work with the Baxter and the RSC again.”
John Kani believes the resonance of Shakespeare for South African audiences is crucial: “We have a history of colonisation by the British. Through missionaries at schools, we were taught to speak good English, the Queen’s language. Why Shakespeare is relevant to us as Africans is that he tells stories of great kingdoms, great wars and battles, great love stories, stories of hatred, good vs. evil, mythology. These things make up the African culture. What makes Shakespeare’s work classic is that it still has relevance today in African society.”
Joining Sir Antony Sher as Prospero and John Kani as Caliban, the formidable cast of South African actors will also include John Kani’s son, Atandwa Kani and all three Brett Goldin Bursary recipients – Omphile Molusi (2007) and Thambi Mbongo and Nicholas Pauling (2008 award winners). More casting information will be released at a later date.
Director Janice Honeyman says: “Tony (Sher) and I sat around a barbeque one mid-summer evening in 2000 in London, and I broached my "African" Tempest to him. It's our play! It's African! It explores colonialism, paternalism, the master / servant relationship, corruption - trickery and plotting - reconciliation and forgiveness, and most of all the appropriation, not only of land, but also of cultural and religious beliefs! Doesn't that sound like home? Add to that, indigenous African music and the astounding visual images that are traditionally African, and we can give The Tempest a terrifically exciting interpretation. The mid-summer night was blue and flashing with ideas and electricity. We had to do this!” RSC Artistic Director Michael Boyd said added, “Baxter Theatre gave us one of our opening shows in the RSC's Complete Works Festival with Janet Suzman's production of Hamlet coming to Stratford-upon-Avon in 2006. I am delighted that we have this opportunity to work with them even more closely. This project is an example of the international collaborations that were seeded in the Festival which are still bearing fruit for us as a company, making us much more in tune with theatre making around the world than ever before."
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