UCT-led productions win at Fleur du Cap Awards

The winners of the 55th Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards have been announced, and the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Centre for Theatre, Dance & Performance Studies (CTDPS) is celebrating the receipt of six category awards.

The annual Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards focus on professional productions staged in and around Cape Town. Awards are presented in 20 categories.

This year, G7: Okwe-Bokhwe (Like/of a goat), staged at the Magnet Theatre in Observatory, and directed by CTDPS senior lecturer Mandla Mbothwe, walked away with the following awards:  

• Best director
• Best performance by an ensemble
• Best sound design, original music, soundscape or live performance.

G7: Okwe-Bokhwe pays tribute to the Gugulethu Seven – the seven young men killed by apartheid police in Gugulethu in March 1986, and has been described as an “active memorial” that celebrates the memory of the young men and acts as a “process of healing the pain of our collective past”.

“When that work is recognised as good directing, it means that I have been going in the right direction.”

“For me, it’s been a journey of pushing through ideas of finding healing and self-love in my productions through claiming the language of isiXhosa, through excavating the black narratives and reimagining the African aesthetics in the performance,” Mbothwe said.

“When that work is recognised as good directing, it means that I have been going in the right direction.”

In addition, the play Scott, directed by final-year theatre and performance student Morapeleng Molekoa, scooped the following awards:

• Best new South African script
• Best new director
• Best performance in a revue, cabaret or one-person show.

Scott questions “the equivalence of how animals are treated in white communities in relation to black people”. The idea came after Molekoa read a post highlighting a car accident where a white woman and her dog survived, but her employee, seated at the back of a bakkie, was killed.

“Winning the Fleur du Cap Awards is a dream come true. This victory is both validation and vindication of the tireless preparation, development, rehearsal and fine-tuning process that has gone into this work,” Molekoa said.

The award for best performance in Scott was also presented to Tafara Nyatsanza, a final-year theatre and performance student.