Comedy-drama. In a country on the Mediterranean Sea that has seen many decades of war, two brothers live a peaceful, unfettered existence. Then a foreign occupation disrupts their lives in unimaginable ways.
Kaput has played to many school audiences, including the National Schools Festival in Grahamstown 2012, with an over-whelming audience response.
Directed by James Cuningham (Jutro; Black and Blue; Sunday Morning), featuring Helen Iskander (Planet B; The Famished Road; Baobabs Don’t Grow Here), Taryn Bennett (Sie Weiss Alles; Doctor Collinger’s Funeral Services), Dorian Burstein (Pictures of You).
Other Highlights
A devised play with exquisite clowning, Kaput is “superb…mesmerising…a total gem”. – Cue
This is a play that is less about war and more about inevitability. The inevitability of war, yes, but more broadly, about the fact that good things will not happen just because we wish they would, and bad things will happen, even when we wish they wouldn’t, and that, in the face of it all, life will inevitability go on. The inevitability of despair alongside the enduring nature of hope, the fact that one cannot escape the reality of war, alongside the realisation that war alone cannot dictate our engagement with our reality, this is the space where this production really lives…It will make you laugh; it will stun you to silent sadness; it will warm your heart; but most importantly, it will make you ecstatically glad that you bought a ticket. Director James Cunningham has pulled together puppetry and pitch-perfect performance with some fake moustaches and a variety of story-telling techniques to produce a work that was without a doubt one of my highlights of the Grahamstown National Arts Festival.” Marie Straub, Media Update
Only women could take the mickey out of a male character the way that Iskander and Bennett do. Iskander gives us the responsible, controlled, macho and sensitive Georges to whom your heart goes out, while Bennett, with her locks, gives us the playful small town gigolo Raphael whom you cannot help but laughingly fall in love with. – Steve Kretzman, Artsblog
Duration: 65 minutes
Grades: Grade 9 - Grade 12
Language(s): English
Curriculum Connection: Dramatic Arts, History, Social Sciences
Themes covered: Abuse, Change, Environmental awareness, Gender roles, National/global conflicts, Relationships, Survival, Violence