Latest news with #BitterWinter
IOL News
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Savour the arts: Hilton Festival to delight with music and theatre this August
"The Cleansing" is choreographed by Lliane Loots and written by poet Iain Ewok Robinson. The three-day event, which will be held at Hilton College, will also include a fine art exhibition, arts-related workshops, live music, interactive musical experiences, free street theatre and food and drink offerings. The much-anticipated Hilton Arts Festival will be returning from August 8 to 10. Here are six productions to add to your must-watch list. "Girls & Boys" Janna Ramos-Violante performs this gripping one-woman play that moves from humour to heartbreak with razor-sharp precision. It is a moving and unflinching look at gender, ambition and the quiet roots of violence. "The Cleansing" Performed outdoors amidst nature, "The Cleansing" is a ritual of movement and poetry that honours our sacred bond with the Earth. Choreographed by Lliane Loots, this powerful work blends dance and spoken word in a visceral call for ecological and social justice. "Bitter Winter" Paul Slabolepszy's latest smash hit follows revered classical actor Jean-Louis Lourens and rising TV sensation Prosper Mangane as they clash and connect, while auditioning for the blockbuster "Six Guns at Sesriem".
Daily Maverick
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Maverick
How Bitter Winter teaches us to make room for each other
The power of Bitter Winter lies not only in its storytelling, but in how it invites us to feel our way through the hard work of making room for each other. It does what few things still manage, it bypasses defensiveness and reaches for something deeper, something felt in the body before the brain catches up. Bitter Winter, written by Paul Slabolepszy and directed by Lesedi Job, follows the unravelled life of once-renowned actor Jean-Louis Lourens (played by André Odendaal) and TV star Prosper Mangane (Oarabile Ditsele), who find themselves auditioning for roles in a cowboy film. What begins as an awkward encounter soon cracks open into something far more personal, a reckoning with age, race, pride and belonging. Chantal Stanfield appears in a supporting role. By the time I saw Bitter Winter for the second time, I already knew it had settled under my skin. I went first with a close friend, and then again with my partner and each time, we sat in quiet tears. The play didn't shout, but it left a mark. What stayed with me wasn't just the characters or the plot. It was the space between them, the ache of what goes unsaid, the invisible weight we all carry. That's where the play lived for me. In the pauses, the slow work of trying to reach one another. It's a story that is at once sharply funny and quietly devastating, the kind of play that makes you laugh through a lump in your throat. But what truly lifts it is the rare, electric alchemy between Odendaal and Ditsele. I've never seen a stage dynamic quite like theirs. They are effervescent together – listening, giving, sparring – as if their performances are tuned to some private frequency the rest of us are lucky to bear witness to. I sat down with André Odendaal, the formidable lead, to talk about that space – the unnameable place where ageing, loss, and language meet. 'When I first read the script, I didn't think, oh wow, what a role,' he said. 'I thought, this is something I need to do. Because of what it says about this time. In our country. In the world. Especially for older people who are often pushed aside, ignored. We still have something to offer.' Odendaal is clear-eyed about what it means to grow older in a culture that equates youth with value. 'I finally feel like I know what I'm doing,' he said. 'And just as I've mastered something, I'm supposed to step aside? No. Ageing isn't just about decline. It's also about power. About knowledge hard-won. We have to stop pretending that older people are done. They're not. They're still contributing, still dreaming.' Bitter Winter lives in this liminal space, between relevance and invisibility, between youth and fragility. But it also does something else. It brings people together across gulfs we often think of as fixed: race, class, age. 'People walk out of the theatre and tell me they saw their father, or their neighbour, or themselves,' Odendaal says. 'That's the power of the play. You're not being preached to. You're feeling it. And feeling is dangerous these days.' Dangerous, he explains, because so many of us are terrified of emotion. 'Social media makes it easy to be cruel, to be flippant, to never touch what's real. But in theatre, there's no hiding. Emotion hits you full in the chest. It releases something.' The intergenerational tension between Odendaal's character and Ditsele's is electric. 'We'd never met before the first rehearsal,' Odendaal explains. 'But from the beginning, there was no 'young black actor' and 'older white actor' nonsense. We just knew, we were two people, making something together. And that trust? That's everything. You can't fake it.' That trust, in many ways, mirrors what the play asks of its audience: to witness, to soften, to make room. Room for contradiction. Room for change. Room for someone else's truth, even when it's not palatable. Because at its core, Bitter Winter is about exactly that: the slow, sometimes clumsy, often tender journey through cultural and racial misunderstanding. It doesn't offer easy resolution. It traces how two men, divided by age, race, and life experience, begin to find areas of overlap. Through conflict and discomfort, they start to build a kind of shared vocabulary – not just of words, but of gesture, silence, recognition. What emerges isn't just connection; it's the beginning of a new language, forged in discomfort, made possible by willingness. The power of Bitter Winter lies not only in its storytelling, but in how it invites us to feel our way through the hard work of making room for each other. It does what few things still manage, it bypasses defensiveness and reaches for something deeper, something felt in the body before the brain catches up. And yet, it's exactly this kind of work: honest, risky, emotionally intelligent, that is so often undervalued in South Africa. The arts remain underfunded, overlooked, reduced to nice-to-haves in a political economy that sees little return in vulnerability. Odendaal told me that they started the play with no funding at all. 'I mean, we did this on nothing. No money. No support. Just belief. It was painful and also beautiful. And now it's grown into this thing people need. Because it speaks to where we are as a nation. Not where we pretend to be, but where we are.' Bitter Winter manages to create space for hard things such as grief, aspiration, and economic desperation without retreating into sentimentality. 'There's a scene,' Odendaal says, 'where my character says, 'I need this job.' Later, Ditsele's character says the same thing. And it lands differently, but equally. That's the equaliser. That's the human core.' We talk, too, about language, how it binds and betrays. The play moves fluidly between English, Afrikaans, and isiXhosa, offering no subtitles, no footnotes. 'You might not understand every word,' Odendaal says, 'but you feel it. You hear the sound of South Africa.' That sound – sometimes dissonant, sometimes aching with recognition – pulses through the work. The play's use of language, like its treatment of age, is complex. It neither romanticises nor rejects. It simply asks us to stay with the discomfort. To keep listening. To stop looking away. 'Ultimately,' Odendaal says, 'this play is about creating space. In our hearts. In our homes. In our public life. For what we think is 'other.' And the arts? The arts help us do that. They allow us to see ourselves and each other, not as enemies, but as echoes.' That, to me, is reason enough to protect the arts: not as decoration, but as infrastructure for a more humane society. If we want to shift how we see one another, how we hold difference, how we repair what's been broken, then theatre must be part of that work. It deserves more than our applause. It deserves our support. As we wrapped up, I found myself thinking not just about Bitter Winter, but about all the stories that never make it to the stage, the ones silenced by lack of funding, exhausted networks, or sheer fatigue. This play is a reminder that theatre still has the power to stir something in us, to help us sit longer with the discomfort, and maybe, just maybe, to find one another across it. We need more of that. And we need to make sure those who bring it to life are able to keep doing so. DM Joy Watson is a Daily Maverick contributor; she has worked as a researcher and policy advisor to national states as well as in the global policy arena. Currently, she works for the Institute for Security Studies and the Sexual Violence Research Initiative. Her debut novel, The Other Me, was a finalist for the UJ Prize in 2023. Bitter Winter is at the Baxter Theatre until 14 June 2025.
IOL News
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
A month of drama: 'Rondomtalie', 'Curl Up & Dye' and 'Bitter Winter' take centre stage in June
Margit Meyer-Rödenbeck, Gary Naidoo and Deon Lotz star in 'Rondomtalie / Marry-Go-Round'. 'Rondomtalie / Marry-Go-Round' This captivating play, which debuted at Suidoosterfees earlier this year, is making its way to the Mother City this month. It centres around relationship therapist, Mahesh Maharaj, who has been tasked to help Olivia and Alan save their 12-year marriage after a scandalous affair. The cast includes Margit Meyer-Rödenbeck as Olivia, Deon Lotz as Alan and Gary Naidoo as Mahesh. Where: Die Boer in Durbanville. When: June 10 and 11 at 8.30pm. 'Curl Up & Dye' This production by Sue Pam-Grant & DJ Grant takes place in a dilapidated hair salon in Joubert Park, Johannesburg. Directed by Darryl Spijkers, the play exposes the power dynamics and social inequalities of the time, with the hair salon acting as a microcosm of the wider societal issues, including racism, classism, and the struggles of survival under oppressive conditions. Where: The Playhouse Theatre in Somerset West. When: From June 11 until June 21. Show times differ, depending on the day. "Bitter Winter" This latest work by Paul Slabolepszy pays tribute to the South African stage legends. The drama follows veteran actor Jean-Louis Lourens and rising star Prosper Mangane clashing at an intense audition. As they wait for a high-profile American director, their stories reveal humour, heart, and the strength of storytelling. Directed by Lesedi Job, starring André Odendaal, Oarabile Ditsele and Chantal Stanfield. Where: The Baxter Theatre. When: Runs until June 14, at 3pm or 8pm.
Mail & Guardian
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Mail & Guardian
Bitter Winter: the show will go on but what of the people in it?
In from the cold: A scene from Bitter Winter, Paul Slabolepszy's new play, which is on at the Baxter in Cape Town. Photos: RegardsVisser A new play by the masterful Paul Slabolepszy is always a cultural event. His latest is in many ways a form of meta-theatre, conveying a deep sense of the tragedy that awaits this country's artists at the tail end of life. But it is also a story of hope for the future. The trick, of course, is to stretch and expand time. That ability possessed by great writers to use words and dialogue, dramatic conflict and connection to parse open and peer inside those crucial moments between people. A well-made play goes inside and examines the interior landscape of the human soul and lays it out for an audience in ways that are entertaining, gripping and — if you are very lucky — capable of shifting your understanding of life itself. A great play puts human beings under a microscope, letting us under their skins, allowing us to see inside their souls so we get an inkling of what it means to be human. Among the most capable writers practising this sort of literary alchemy is Paul Slabolepszy, a legend of South African stage (and screen), and someone who has consistently placed this country's people under a microscope and taught audiences something about who we are. And, perhaps even more significantly, who we're capable of being. That's what struck me hardest while watching his latest play, a three-hander that debuted in Joburg earlier this year and is showing at the Baxter in Cape Town. It is not merely a dramatisation of an encounter between two very different men, it is in fact a celebration of what ultimately connects them. It is a play about what we share. And it is a play that makes you want to be a better person, to try harder and to work at looking more deeply into the eyes of other humans — especially strangers and presumed enemies. Bitter Winter is directed by Lesedi Job and, between them, a team of fastidious designers (set, lighting and sound are all nuanced and compelling) and three actors, what they've crafted is an instant classic, a humbling show that manages to contain an entire universe of human experience. It is wisdom distilled into something warm and tender, funny and entertaining. It is in some respects a small play, no interval and with most of the dialogue between two actors at opposite ends of their careers, characters who at first glance seem polar opposites, unlikely to ever see eye to eye. But Slabolepszy's triumph is that, like a sculptor, he's able to carve away the superficial exterior and expose the human beings at their core. It is riveting to watch, like a live dissection executed with incredible skill and grace and with great care. He puts beautiful truths and vivid stories into the mouths of the play's two stars, reveals their inner workings in honest, measured, sparkling dialogue, so that, by the end of it, you're genuinely touched, eyes doubtless a little wet. It never skips through time, nor does it use effects or stagey gimmicks. 'Now is the winter of our discontent …': Lesedi Job, the director of Bitter Winter, a three-hander written by Paul Slabolepszy. Photos: Gustav Gerdener It is one space, a casting agency waiting room where the kettle's on the fritz and the flimsy excuse for a coffee station is stocked with the cheap and nasty instant stuff. Plus there's a presumably emotionless clock-watching production assistant-type running around, always talking to actors with her back to them. As it turns out, she's human, too. Somehow, in this world of quick, fast, short sound bites, Slabolepszy puts words, sentences and memories together in ways that make you want to really listen to the stories, the longer the better. And when his words find their way into the mouths of such consummate actors as André Odendaal and Oarabile Ditsele, the result feels urgent, precious and prescient. Odendaal plays Jean-Louis, a much older, wiser and poorer actor who survives by occasionally covering shifts at a corner café and otherwise drawing a stipend from the Theatre Benevolent Fund. He does not even possess a cellphone. Ditsele's Prosper Mangane is, by contrast, a young, streetwise know-it-all, full of intelligence gleaned from a short but tempestuous life, and he comes pre-loaded with unfiltered disdain for old white men. The question of whether his disdain is the result of a specific chip on his shoulder, a characteristic of impatient youth or casual indifference to a stranger who is chewing up the oxygen in the room is part of the play's dramatic unfolding. What unfolds, too, is proof you do not need complicated plots, nor an avalanche of profanities, no overt politics, tales of abuse, nor some horrifying hidden secret to generate something powerful and impactful on stage. You simply need truth, stories with heart and relationships between characters whose underlying conflict is capable of going somewhere. You're set up from the start to assume Jean-Louis is cantankerous and gruff. That he is some badly-dressed fuddy-duddy looking after number one. And it's such assumptions that get knocked down again and again in Bitter Winter, a play that's figuratively about those bitter twilight years of old age but also, more literally, takes place on a cold winter afternoon in downtown Joburg. The audience is also set up to instantly judge and characterise Prosper, played so adorably and effortlessly by Ditsele that you almost assume that, like his character, he's not putting in the work, that perhaps he really is simply slouching around, easing into the role, doing what comes naturally. Which is often the bone older people like Jean-Louis have to pick with young people — they're unwilling to put in the hard slog. They think they know everything and, in some respects, they do. Prosper has quickly ratcheted up fame, has all the indulgent playthings of a get-rich-quick lifestyle, including a warm thermal undershirt in his bag and an Audi with a ding that'll cost a small fortune to fix. The casting agency waiting room says it all, though: the behind-the-scenes reality of an industry that is often associated with glamour and opening-night fanfare. But what we're confronted with here is anything but glitzy; it's downright appalling, not even a thought for a bit of heating to keep actors warm while waiting for some hotshot film director to arrive from the airport where he's just landed, no doubt having flown first class. The traditions Bitter Winter draws on are rich, from the great speeches of Shakespeare to Beckett's absurdist set-up of having two characters endlessly waiting for the arrival of some god-like figure. And there's the familiarity of something known to all of us — being uncomfortably stuck in a room with a stranger. Slabolepszy is such an expert on the human condition, and knows so well how to find the best in people, that he's able to draw his characters not into a punch-up, but into a far more dazzling and purposeful expression of all their inner turmoils, memories, hopes, dreams and hurts. Then there's that moment of mutual recognition, the point at which what we witness on stage is an expression of our shared humanity. Something you notice is that, despite his complaints about the cold and the physical pain he's in, Jean-Louis does not feel especially sorry for himself. To an extent, he has accepted his fate, knows enough about how the narrative plays out to realise how and why his life has taken the turn it has. There's a kind of sadness in that, too, but of course this tragic old thespian has been schooled not only by life but also by the parts he's played. And he's comforted, perhaps, by the knowledge that he still has it in him to act — and to do so with everything in his soul. He proves as much, in fact, in a heart-wrenching scene where, at Prosper's insistence, he performs a speech by Richard III's Duke of Gloucester. As Prosper watches Jean-Louis give the performance of a lifetime you see a switch being turned in the young man's heart. He has never had someone mentor him, never known anyone to take the time to show him what acting can in fact be. It's a profound and stirring moment, one in which theatre becomes a place of healing, a sanctuary where souls meet, a space where reality is shaped into something new. Bitter Winter will be playing at the Baxter Studio in Cape Town until 14 June.
IOL News
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Cape Town theatre this week: unpacking legacy, love and life's beautiful mess
"Bitter Winter", the latest work by Paul Slabolepszy, pays tribute to the South African stage legends. The drama follows veteran actor Jean-Louis Lourens and rising star Prosper Mangane clashing at an intense audition. As they wait for a high-profile American director, their stories reveal humour, heart, and the strength of storytelling. Directed by Lesedi Job, starring André Odendaal, Oarabile Ditsele, and Chantal Stanfield. Where: Baxter Theatre. When: Runs until June 14, at 3pm or 8pm. "Ingrid – 'n Vlam in die Sneeu" (A flame in the snow) is a new theatre production inspired by the intimate love letters between poets Ingrid Jonker and André P. Brink. Brought to life on stage with music and poetry, the show explores their passionate relationship, Ingrid's search for freedom, and her emotional journey through art. Where: The Drama Factory. When: Saturday, May 31, at 7.30pm. Greed, betrayal, and the lure of the unknown take centre stage in "Treasure Island". Courage is tested and loyalties shift as young Jim faces pirates, buried secrets, and the high cost of treasure. Where: The Masque Theatre. When: Wednesday, May 28, at 6.30pm.
