The Market Theatre Laboratory Presents Theatre of Excess, a Theatre Think Tank Event

23 September 2021 @ 19h00

The Theatre Think Tank is a project of the Market Theatre Laboratory that seeks to widen conversations on the contemporary art practices and processes of artists in/from South Africa. For the second event, “Theatre of Excess”, we host four powerhouse artists. Each artist’s work as performer-playwright-producer puts them in multiple roles. For “The theatre of Excess”, the four artists will explore their solo productions, and how they surpass a single form.

Buhle Ngaba, Billy Langa, MoMo Matsunyane, and Tony Miyambo perform and think through the creation of each of their pioneering pieces of solo theatre. From Swan Song, to Tswalo, through Unlearn, and Kafka’s Ape, these masterful playwright-performers, produce an access point to their own processes. With them, we explore the possible excess of theatre; and how a work can live its own life.

“Theatre of Excess” is like proof of life in avant-garde form. Life, in its messy, beautiful, tragic divinity takes on new shapes in the hands of these writer-performers who are unafraid of spillage. The four plays exceed the usual forms of writing and performance, combining stand-up, poetry, lecture, and even the abject. Each artist creates innovative storytelling that pulses with life. “The Theatre of Excess” is not afraid to dive into dark humour or fanciful flight. ‘Excess… shifts the center of meaning-making and splinters it across space in varying directions. It cannot be contained. It is liberated from social mores and theatrical conventions by being “too much”, just like life (Theatre in Transformation, 2019).’ “The Theatre of Excess” is like watching the life of a person staging its own resistance against being confined.

The second Theatre Think Tank event hosts four artists, with excess at play.

Buhle Ngaba

Billy Langa

MoMo Matsunyane

Tony Miyambo

 

Theatre Think Tank

is curated by

Nondumiso Lwazi Msimanga