Latest news with #BreakfastwithMugabe
IOL News
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Theatre that speaks: Robert Mugabe's legacy and Charlie Chaplin's laughter take centre stage
Farai Chigudu, Craig Jackson, Calvin Ratladi, Gontse Ntshegang and Themba Ndaba co-star in 'Breakfast with Mugabe'. Image: Supplied From a thought-provoking psychological drama to a magical musical tribute, this week's offerings will keep theatregoers engaged. Breakfast with Mugabe Directed by Calvin Ratladi, who scooped the 2025 Standard Bank Young Artist for Theatre honours, this production enjoyed a magnificent premiere at the National Arts Festival in Makhanda. Now Joburgers will get to see it at The Market Theatre. Breakfast with Mugabe, a play by acclaimed British playwright Fraser Grace, features an outstanding cast. Themba Ndaba stars as Mugabe, with Gontse Ntshegang portraying his wife, Grace. Craig Jackson takes on the role of Mugabe's psychiatrist, Dr Peric, and Zimbabwean actor Farai Chigudu plays Mugabe's bodyguard. The script has garnered praise, with many likening it to a modern-day 'Macbeth.' This comparison stems from Mugabe's torment by the vengeful spirit of a deceased comrade. Drawing from reports of the former Zimbabwean president seeking help from a white psychiatrist, the narrative explores themes of grief, healing, faith, nationalism and legacy. The script delves into the complexities of Mugabe, using theatrical flair to expose uncomfortable continental realities. It tackles the descent of African liberators into ruthless dictators, societal myths surrounding mental illness in Africa, and the persistent structural violence inherent in colonial systems. 'This is not a biography or a courtroom drama. It's a psychological reckoning - a fictional encounter between Mugabe and a psychiatrist that lays bare the cost of unprocessed grief, the violence of ego, and the burden of legacy. 'Through sharp dialogue and intense performances, we explore Mugabe not as a historical figure frozen in time, but as a deeply wounded man wrestling with ghosts. Audiences may find echoes of their own leaders, their families, even themselves, in that struggle,' Ratladi shared. Where: Mannie Manim, Market Theatre. When: Runs until August 10, 7pm. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ THE TRAMP Wêla Kapela Productions, who brought us the multi-award-winning Vincent, are back with a musical love letter to Charlie Chaplin. Under the direction of Amanda Bothma, the two-hander, starring Daniel Anderson and Paul Ferreira, guarantees audiences an emotional rollercoaster of laughter, heartbreak and revelation. Using a distinctive blend of popular music, the aesthetics of silent film, and Chaplinesque charm, The Tramp delves into the bittersweet relationship between creator and creation. It explores how this iconic character served as a shield for the profoundly complex man behind the moustache. Digging deep into the fractured bond between man and myth, the show moves from playful comedy to cutting political satire. It reveals how the advent of talking pictures silenced The Tramp and left Chaplin vulnerable to scandal and persecution. 'Life is tragedy in close-up, but comedy in long-shot.' Where: Theatre on the Square, Sandton When: Runs until July 26, 7.30pm.
The Star
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
Calvin Ratladi's 'Breakfast with Mugabe' delivers a bold, haunting portrait at The Market Theatre
After a powerful debut at the 2025 National Arts Festival, Calvin Ratladi's Breakfast with Mugabe is set to make its way to the Market Theatre - bringing with it a bold, unflinching meditation on power, memory, and the ghosts that haunt leadership. The production, which drew strong responses during its Makhanda run from July 3 to 6 as part of the festival - South Africa's longest-running and most prestigious celebration of the arts - marked a significant moment for Ratladi, this year's Standard Bank Young Artist for Theatre. Based on the award-winning script by British playwright Fraser Grace, the production reimagines President Robert Mugabe not as the distant figure we've come to know through headlines and political discourse, but as a haunted man, navigating memory, grief, and the ghosts of power. In Grace's fictionalised account, loosely inspired by reports that Mugabe once sought psychiatric help for his declining mental health, we find Zimbabwe's former president in conversation with a white psychiatrist. What begins as a clinical session soon unravels into a layered exploration of trauma, nationalism, identity, and the burdens of leadership. Breakfast with Mugabe has been hailed as a 'modern-day Macbeth,' but in Ratladi's hands, the play becomes something even more personal and political. 'Never in my deepest existence did I imagine I would direct this play,' Ratladi admits. 'I read it in 2016 while I was still an undergrad. I loved the script, but it was not the kind of work I gravitate towards.' Yet something lingered. Over the years, he noticed how the themes of land dispossession, power, African culture, spirituality and ancestry echoed his own artistic concerns. The connection deepened, not just with Mugabe the leader, but with Mugabe the man. 'I was interested in who this man really was. Not the version fed to us by the media and propaganda. I wanted to know the colour of his underwear, the small decisions in his household that somehow held global consequences. These things aren't just personal, they're ancestral, psychological, spiritual.' To ground the production in authenticity, Ratladi brought on a cultural dramaturg from Zimbabwe, Professor Samuel Ravengai, an academic intimately familiar with the country's spiritual and political terrain. The dramaturg helped guide certain choices in the staging, allowing Ratladi to merge intuitive direction with lived cultural insight. 'Every moment in the show was decided,' he says. 'Sometimes I followed their advice fully, sometimes partially. But I always listened.' His cast, too, reflects this commitment to truth. Themba Ndaba brings gravitas to the role of Robert Mugabe, while Gontse Ntshegang embodies Grace Mugabe with a commanding, complex presence. Craig Jackson rounds out the principal cast as Andrew Peric, the probing psychiatrist whose sessions with Mugabe drive the psychological tension of the piece. One surprise addition was the actor cast as the president's bodyguard, Farai Chigudu, who flew in from Zimbabwe to audition. 'I asked him three times to come in, and he never once mentioned he was flying from Zimbabwe,' Ratladi recalls. 'Now he's here, in South Africa, making his theatre debut.' The production process was as intense as the script itself. With just four weeks to mount the piece, Ratladi and his team worked at an unrelenting pace, driven by what he describes as a divine plan. 'This felt like God's work. Everything aligned, cast, collaborators, and timing. Things I dreamed about years ago just started falling into place.' But why should people come see Breakfast with Mugabe? For Ratladi, the answer lies in what the play dares to confront. 'In African leadership, vulnerability is still a taboo,' he says. 'And I think this play opens up that conversation. It shows how the political and the personal are deeply intertwined, how a moment of discomfort in a leader's household can spill over and shape the fate of an entire nation.' Ratladi refers to the piece as being 'full of flaws, fear, brilliance, and brokenness.' At its heart, it's about human beings, not headlines. 'I had to guide the actors to play real people. That meant stripping away performance masks and finding emotional truth. I hope audiences leave unsettled, in the best way, questioning the cost of silence, the weight of history, and what it means to protect the myths of one's life.' Ratladi insists that Breakfast with Mugabe is far more than a biographical study; it's a meditation on the aftershocks of colonialism, the psychological toll of liberation, and the fragile humanity obscured by political power. His interpretation is steeped in African cosmology and cultural specificity, yet it echoes with a universality that resonates far beyond the continent. 'Every day I walked into rehearsal, it felt like coming home,' he says. 'Not work. Home. And we understood the politics of this continent, but also where we are now, and how this story might speak to the global moment.' He adds that the production has changed him. 'One thing this work has taught me is to trust slowness. To listen. I've learned that the most powerful moments are found in the quiet corners of a scene, in the breath before the line. It's reaffirmed my commitment to telling African stories with complexity, without simplifying our realities to fit Western expectations.' Breakfast with Mugabe will make its highly anticipated debut at The Market Theatre, where it will run from July 16 to August 10.
IOL News
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Calvin Ratladi's 'Breakfast with Mugabe' delivers a bold, haunting portrait at The Market Theatre
The cast brings to life the final years of Robert Mugabe's rule in Zimbabwe in Fraser Grace's award-winning play 'Breakfast with Mugabe', delving into the troubled mind of the once-revered leader as he confronts inner demons and political paranoia. After a powerful debut at the 2025 National Arts Festival, Calvin Ratladi's Breakfast with Mugabe is set to make its way to the Market Theatre - bringing with it a bold, unflinching meditation on power, memory, and the ghosts that haunt leadership. The production, which drew strong responses during its Makhanda run from July 3 to 6 as part of the festival - South Africa's longest-running and most prestigious celebration of the arts - marked a significant moment for Ratladi, this year's Standard Bank Young Artist for Theatre. Based on the award-winning script by British playwright Fraser Grace, the production reimagines President Robert Mugabe not as the distant figure we've come to know through headlines and political discourse, but as a haunted man, navigating memory, grief, and the ghosts of power. In Grace's fictionalised account, loosely inspired by reports that Mugabe once sought psychiatric help for his declining mental health, we find Zimbabwe's former president in conversation with a white psychiatrist. What begins as a clinical session soon unravels into a layered exploration of trauma, nationalism, identity, and the burdens of leadership. Breakfast with Mugabe has been hailed as a 'modern-day Macbeth,' but in Ratladi's hands, the play becomes something even more personal and political. 'Never in my deepest existence did I imagine I would direct this play,' Ratladi admits. 'I read it in 2016 while I was still an undergrad. I loved the script, but it was not the kind of work I gravitate towards.' Yet something lingered. Over the years, he noticed how the themes of land dispossession, power, African culture, spirituality and ancestry echoed his own artistic concerns. The connection deepened, not just with Mugabe the leader, but with Mugabe the man. 'I was interested in who this man really was. Not the version fed to us by the media and propaganda. I wanted to know the colour of his underwear, the small decisions in his household that somehow held global consequences. These things aren't just personal, they're ancestral, psychological, spiritual.' To ground the production in authenticity, Ratladi brought on a cultural dramaturg from Zimbabwe, Professor Samuel Ravengai, an academic intimately familiar with the country's spiritual and political terrain. The dramaturg helped guide certain choices in the staging, allowing Ratladi to merge intuitive direction with lived cultural insight. 'Every moment in the show was decided,' he says. 'Sometimes I followed their advice fully, sometimes partially. But I always listened.' His cast, too, reflects this commitment to truth. Themba Ndaba brings gravitas to the role of Robert Mugabe, while Gontse Ntshegang embodies Grace Mugabe with a commanding, complex presence. Craig Jackson rounds out the principal cast as Andrew Peric, the probing psychiatrist whose sessions with Mugabe drive the psychological tension of the piece. One surprise addition was the actor cast as the president's bodyguard, Farai Chigudu, who flew in from Zimbabwe to audition. 'I asked him three times to come in, and he never once mentioned he was flying from Zimbabwe,' Ratladi recalls. 'Now he's here, in South Africa, making his theatre debut.' The production process was as intense as the script itself. With just four weeks to mount the piece, Ratladi and his team worked at an unrelenting pace, driven by what he describes as a divine plan. 'This felt like God's work. Everything aligned, cast, collaborators, and timing. Things I dreamed about years ago just started falling into place.' But why should people come see Breakfast with Mugabe? For Ratladi, the answer lies in what the play dares to confront. 'In African leadership, vulnerability is still a taboo,' he says. 'And I think this play opens up that conversation. It shows how the political and the personal are deeply intertwined, how a moment of discomfort in a leader's household can spill over and shape the fate of an entire nation.' Ratladi refers to the piece as being 'full of flaws, fear, brilliance, and brokenness.' At its heart, it's about human beings, not headlines. 'I had to guide the actors to play real people. That meant stripping away performance masks and finding emotional truth. I hope audiences leave unsettled, in the best way, questioning the cost of silence, the weight of history, and what it means to protect the myths of one's life.' Ratladi insists that Breakfast with Mugabe is far more than a biographical study; it's a meditation on the aftershocks of colonialism, the psychological toll of liberation, and the fragile humanity obscured by political power. His interpretation is steeped in African cosmology and cultural specificity, yet it echoes with a universality that resonates far beyond the continent. 'Every day I walked into rehearsal, it felt like coming home,' he says. 'Not work. Home. And we understood the politics of this continent, but also where we are now, and how this story might speak to the global moment.' He adds that the production has changed him. 'One thing this work has taught me is to trust slowness. To listen. I've learned that the most powerful moments are found in the quiet corners of a scene, in the breath before the line. It's reaffirmed my commitment to telling African stories with complexity, without simplifying our realities to fit Western expectations.' Breakfast with Mugabe will make its highly anticipated debut at The Market Theatre, where it will run from July 16 to August 10.
