| What: Solo Fest – mini festival -short performances of 5 – 9 minutes When: December 1 and 2, 2024 Where: Theatre Arts, corner of Milton Road, Wesley St, Observatory, Cape Town Producer: Spark in the Dark Info: www.theatrearts.co.za or @sparkinthedarksa |
The excitement was palpable on Sunday December 1, 2024, at Theatre Arts in Observatory for the first night of Solo Fest, produced by Spark in the Dark and hosted by the exuberant and effervescent Sophie Joans. The performers at Solo Fest are graduates of So You want to Write a Solo Show, facilitated by Joans and Spark in the Dark. They presented around ten minutes of their solo shows at Solo Fest, from material created while attending So You want to Write a Solo Show, a 5-week writing course, which gives “people the space to learn various elements on creating a solo show”.
As evidenced from the audience on Sunday, December 1, friends and family were hugely supportive of the creatives taking to the stage. Solo Fest was also held on Monday December 2. I did not attend the December the 2nd programme.
The cohort of creatives at Solo Fest, attended the Solo Show course at the beginning of September this year (2024). That is not a long time to take an idea from the page to stage. From what I gather, most of the creatives don’t have formal theatre training so bravo to them for developing their ideas at the course and being brave to stand up on stage in front of an audience.
There were sound issues with a video piece which was unfortunate because we couldn’t hear the dialogue. Some of the pieces that I saw on Sunday night have bones to be developed into fully fledged solo pieces. But they are still very much in a foetal stage.
A piece that already has a body – never mind bones – is Roshina Ratnam’s I Think I Smell Smoke. Ratnam is a renowned puppeteer and actor. She is directing Glimmer, aimed at teenagers and young adult audiences which is on at Magnet Theatre as part of its Summer Season 2024 (season ends December 13). She co-wrote the excellent script for Glimmer (with Mongiwekhaya).
I was blown away by Ratnam’s writing and performance in I Think I Smell Smoke. In this autobiographical play, she explores her family’s journey from Sri Lanka to Africa. They left Sri Lanka, “after what is called the JVP uprising in 1971,” explains Ratnam. The family’s first stop was Zambia – where Ratnam was born. They then went to Bophuthatswana.
Ratnam excavates her family history poignantly and yet playfully. She uses puppets (love the puppets) and objects, such as a newspaper and photo albums. It is not just the objects as props but objects as bodies in the space. For instance, Ratnam’s dad is conjured up on stage, trembling on a train as he reads a newspaper, as unrest is ignited around him. The newspaper quivers and becomes an extension of her dad. This is theatre of magic. The play is knotted and layered with the physical performance and expression and language of the puppeteer medium.
It is a very reflective and tender play. Ratnam ponders what her family chose to take with them. What does one decide to take when you have to leave home and seek a safe haven somewhere else? Bemused by their choices, she reveals the family heirloom- the porcelain chamber pot that they schlepped with them on their peregrination. Despite the cracks in the chamber pot, it doesn’t leak her family’s “generational shit”. And there was secrets in the family – which Ratnam reveals in her story and which she didn’t know about in the past.
I Think I Smell Smoke is Ratnam’s first solo piece which she has written and performs in. “Yes, it’s the first time I’m performing my own writing in this form. I used to tour and perform Slam poetry but that was years ago. It feels like a new chapter. I really want to explore my writing voice, which started with Glimmer and now this… What you saw was an exploration of some of the pieces of that were written during the Solo Writing course”, she says.
I Think I smell Smoke has been brewing for about a year so the course was an opportunity for Ratnam to hone and take her material onto the stage. I look forward to seeing this exciting play, in its full form in a theatre.
It is wonderful that the Solo Show writing course is available for people to attend. No audition is required. No qualifications are needed. Congrats to Joans and Spark in the Dark for offering the course and for establishing the Solo Fest platform.
✳ Featured image – some of the participants at Solo Fest, supplied by Spark in the Dark
