Last chance to see Dame Janet Suzman in Lara Foot’s highly acclaimed Solomon and Marion at the Baxter for 11 performances only from 10 to 20 July
The media raved, with Financial Mail recommending it highly and Business Day saying, “It has been worth the wait,” while Peter Feldman for Artspoken and Reviews on Artslink said, “Very rarely have I been so mesmerised in a theatre by a play.” He also said that “Lara Foot has written and directed a masterpiece in contemporary theatre which sears the soul,” and the Weekend Star described it as “deeply satisfying”.
The production brings together two very dynamic theatre luminaries when Suzman is directed by author Foot in her own two-hander which earned her the 2012 Fleur du Cap award for Best New South African Play. Mannie Manim won the award for Best Lighting Design and a further four nominations were received for Best Director (Lara Foot), Best Set and Props Design (Patrick Curtis), Best Actress (Janet Suzman) and Best Actor (Khayalethu Anthony).
Solomon and Marion is the story of two injured souls searching for redemption in the fragile, post-apartheid South Africa. Marion has watched her life drain away. Children and husband gone, she ekes out an existence in a country utterly transformed. But it’s the only home she has. As the new South Africa prepares for the World Cup finals, old divisions and suspicions seem as deep as ever, and the intruder she has been expecting, dreading and needing arrives. Can true reconciliation turn darkness into hope?
Widely regarded as one of this country’s most venerated theatre exports, Suzman is an internationally acclaimed and respected South African-born actress and director, who was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her services to drama in the Queen's 2011 Birthday Honours, just six months after receiving an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Cape Town for her extraordinary achievements in theatre. With this production Suzman returned to the Johannesburg stage for the first time in over 35 years.
The Johannesburg-born actress and niece of the anti-apartheid activist Helen Suzman has twice won the Evening Standard Best Actress Award, and received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for her first lead in the film Nicholas and Alexandra. In a career spanning five decades, she has played almost the full list of Shakespeare's female leads, as well as directing adaptations of Othello and The Cherry Orchard. The Sunday Times (London) has hailed her performance of Cleopatra as “the greatest Cleopatra of the past 50 years”.
This collaboration is in many ways a dream come true for the multiple-award-winning Foot, who heads up the Baxter Theatre Centre as CEO and Artistic Director.
“I wrote this play with Janet in mind. The tone of her voice was in my head,” explains Lara. “The play was inspired by a conversation I had with psychotherapist Tony Hamburger. It was motivated, in a sense, by a time in Cape Town when South Africa felt desperate both politically and socially. The actor Brett Goldin was murdered in 2006 just before the company was due to leave for Stratford-upon-Avon in the UK to perform in the Baxter Theatre Centre’s production of Hamlet (which Janet directed) at the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company’s Complete Works Festival. So sifting through all this, I found a symbol of life which exists in unlikely relationships.”
Lara continues, “I then worked on a different version called Reach, in collaboration with Clare Stopford (director), Aletta Bezuidenhout and Mbulelo Grootboom, which was beautifully staged in 2007 at the Theaterformen Festival in Germany, then at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown before coming to the Baxter. Four years later I gave the script to Janet to read and the following day she called back to say “When are we doing it?” Since then it has been a delightful and amoebic joyride and journey with Janet and Khayalethu who have inhabited their characters with their own specific narratives, and a very different production has been created. It is a privilege for a writer to have a second look at a script.”
Twenty-six-year-old Khayalethu Anthony made his mainstream theatre debut with this production in the role of the young Solomon. Anthony was selected out of 14 actors through a rigorous audition process. He was nominated for Best Script Writer at the Baxter’s 2011 Zabalaza Theatre Festival where he wrote and directed Inqwithelo Zemimoya, performed in isiXhosa, with his Khayelitsha-based company Imbawula Theatre Company.
When Khayalethu heard that he was chosen to perform the role of Solomon opposite Dame Janet Suzman he was initially scared and then ‘freaked out’ - that is how ecstatic he felt on receiving the news.
“I started googling the name Janet Suzman just after I heard that I got the role. I felt like I have a mountain to climb. She is a world-class actress with an incredible performance reputation. To share the same stage with one of the finest actors in the world is more than a privilege for me; it is more than an honour. It just simply is the best thing that has happened to me in my life.”
Solomon and Marion runs at the Baxter Golden Arrow Studio for 11 performances only from 10 to 20 July at 7pm and booking is through Computicket on 0861 915 8000, on-line at www.computicket.co.za or at any Shoprite Checkers outlet countrywide.
Janet Suzman and Khayalethu Anthony in Solomon and Marion
For further media enquiries, interview or pic requests, contact Fahiem Stellenboom on telephone 021 680 3971, cell 072 2656 023 or email fahiem.stellenboom@uct.ac.za or Alethea Patterson-Cordiglia on 021 680 3963, cell 072 014 2780 or email alethea.patterson-cordiglia@uct.ac.za or Daphne Kuhn (Johannesburg) on 011 883 8606 or email theatreonthesquare@gmail.com
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