27 Sept - 7 Oct 2012
Student Play

2012 sees the inaugural “Expressions Sessions” festival launch itself in Durban. As part of Celebrate Durban and a collaboration with Life Check and the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Howard College Drama Programme, this festival is set to woo audiences with alternate heartfelt and deeply engaged theatre and performance. Ranging from spoken work, breakdance, graffiti art, and innovated theatre productions, the “Expressions Sessions” festival is sure to get audiences back into the theatre and back begging for more!

The festival takes place over two weeks and has three distinct encounters or events. “Expressions Sessions” opens with the critically acclaimed one man show “Seriously?”. Written and performed by Durban’s inimitable spoken word rhyme master iainEWOKrobinson, and directed by Karen Logan, best known for her sensitive and award winning directorial work on Neil Coppen’s “Tin Bucket Drum” and her inventive film and video work for Flatfoot Dance Company.

“Seriously?” has already had two sell out seasons at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown and a very short but sold out run as part of the New Stages at the Playhouse. This welcome return of a masterfully crafted and deeply personal spoken word encounter with self and the world, is one of this year’s theatrical gems! “Seriously?” is a show about finding your own space, finding your own place, discovering individuality and then showing others how to do the same. 

Rooted in a tell-tale narrative of a white boy growing up in 80s KZN and finding that he doesn’t quite fit in till he stumbles upon ‘The Universal Zulu Nation’; and then all hell breaks loose!  It is about calling for the creation of a society that thrives on individual expression and creativity – the very essence of what the festival “Expressions Sessions” is all about! “Seriously?” is sensitively directed by Karen Logan and includes her live video mixing as part of the visual flavour of this spoken work classic. 

Tickets: R50 (full price)
  R25 (discount price for students, scholars, pensioners, and group bookings of more than 10)

27 September (Thursday): 7.30pm
28 September (Friday): 7.30pm
29 September (Saturday): 7.30pm
30 September (Sunday): 3pm

The “Expressions Sessions” festival continues in week two with an epic battle between the classic Bertold Brecht text of “The Good Person of Setzuan”, and a very contemporary picking up of where Brecht left off around this seminal socially astute and politically engaged 20th century theatre text, into a workshopped production called “The Free Person of Such-A-One”.

Directed by iainEWOKrobinson and Karen Melissa Logan and created in collaboration with a cast of Drama and Performance Studies students from Howard College Campus (UKZN), “The Good Person of Such-A-One” - a sequel to Bertolt Brecht's “The Good Woman of Setzuan” -combines elements of Brecht’s signature style of theatre making with contemporary Hip Hop and spoken word theatre.  Brecht was intent on creating theatre that was relevant to its immediate social context and “The Good Person Of Such-A-One” seeks, as Brecht intended, to address current sociopolitical concerns about the nature of freedom in South Africa, 2012. 

The play begins when ‘The Gods’ return to Earth on a mission; to find a person who is truly “Free”. But this time they’ve landed in South Africa, and finding “Such-a-One” is not as simple as it first appeared ...

What happens when the people the Gods have come to preach to don’t recognise their Godly ways?  In a world where technological miracles are happening all the time, the God’s old-fashioned water-to-wine tricks don’t seem to pack the same punch as they used to. People have turned to new “deities” - everyone from Malema to Lady Gaga - and found their scriptures in the machinery of materialism. It is some decades since they left the poor Shente struggling to be good in an economically harsh world, the Gods now embark on their new mission to find a ‘Free Person’ -  because without freedom, the quest for goodness is an uphill battle few seem capable of conquering.

The audience will be taken on a whirlwind journey across the country, from Park Station to Mangaung, from seedy pavements to lavish Freedom Day concerts, as the Gods attempt to complete their difficult quest, with (and sometimes without) the help of a motley crew of true-to-life South African characters. Come watch the three Gods bumble their way around 21st century South Africa, in the hope of finding the ever illusive Freedom in this precarious South African democracy. 

4 October (Thursday): 7.30pm
5 October (Friday): 7.30pm
6 October (Saturday): 7.30pm
7 October (Sunday): 3pm

Advance booking for “Seriously?” and “The Good Person Of Such-A-One” are through Computicket.