The first Cape Town run of the Gold Standard Bank Ovation Award-winning production Île by Sophie Joans will take place at the Homecoming Centre, following a successful run at the National Arts Festival in Makhanda. The play will run from 22 to 27 August 2022.
The coming-of-age story follows an 18-year-old girl who visits her ancestral home: Mauritius. A trip to a tropical island to connect with her extended family (and have some fun away from her mother) gets too real as she uncovers the dark history and realises that underneath paradise, a volcano is still waiting to erupt.
Dave Mann from The Critter describes it as: “A hell of a play. The writing is superb. It’s fast, funny, and able to turn on a dime – from the outrageous and the absurd to moments of striking sincerity. It’s a play that excavates and animates the aforementioned matrilineal lines as a point of connection, a search for one’s personal history to better make sense of the present. We’re just along for the journey, and happily so.”
Sophie Joans is an award-winning theatre-maker from Cape Town with Mauritian roots. She studied theatre at UCT and Wits, and completed short courses at RADA, Comedy Cellar and Second City. Her previous works include two-hander The Flower Hunters (2021 – Winner of Standard Bank Ovation Award) and puppet show Do You Dream In Colour (2018 – Winner of Zabalaza Festival’s Most Innovative Play). She collaborated on the short film, Verloren (2021 – Winner of Standard Bank Silver Ovation Award). Île is her debut solo play.
What: Île
Where and when: Avalon Auditorium (in the former Fugard complex), Homecoming Centre, District Six from 22 to 27 August 2022
Book: Quicket
Pictures: Elejha-ze Gengan
WS
