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HUNGRY – A HUNGER FOR TRADE PROJECT
THE SOUTH AFRICAN STATE THEATRE PRESENTS
HUNGRY – A HUNGER FOR TRADE PROJECT
Written and directed Aubrey Sekhabi, with story-structure inputs by Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom and research by Dr Otsile Ntsoane, Hungry is a story about a poor unemployed 42 years old man Tommy (played by Sanku Bokaba), who is visited by a disgraced Afrikaner researcher and journalist, Johan (played by Brandon Auret of the District 9 and Elysium fame) who gets a second chance to redeem himself as he stands in for another researcher who fell ill on a research assignment about food insecurity and poverty at a particular poor South African working class community, where Tommy resides. The community is a fictional South African microcosm called Lusaka. This is where Tommy who leads Johan through the community’s poverty, their plight and their problems.
Johan’s visit happens at a time when two key members of this community, Mpho (played by Tshallo Chokwe) and Maponyane (played by Josias Molele). The two, with the help of their warrior-history community, have just won their land back. The community and in particular Tommy is hoping this land is going to feed them. They hope that they are going to plant organic food and prosper from their own soil. But then, like in Orwell’s Animal Farm, we discover that Mpho betrays their ideologies and his best friend and comrade, Maponyane, and sells part of the arable land to a land-grabbing multi-national company. At the end, through Tommy’s character growth and leadership, the community starts to revolt against Mpho.
As for Johan, this assignment is a make or break position for him, and he goes to great lengths to try and make this work, thinking about the future of his grieving and wayward son, Dries (played by Cameron McEwan). They both go through the hunger and the unemployment and the misery of the township and the people of Lusaka, expecting to find victims, but what they instead find is a people grappling with life and survival and a determination to overcome their misery.
Hungry is about urban poverty, food insecurity and about how these issues are interpreted and explored in a personal and communal space that takes the side of the oppressed and the hungry.
PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE:
Performance dates: 16 May – 8 June 2014
Previews: 15 May 2014
Opening night: 16 May 2014
Performance times: Tues – Sat @ 20:00 & Sun @ 15:00
Tickets: Tues (R40) & Wed – Sun @ R80
Venue: Arena Theatre, State Theatre
PUBLISHED BY
DK EXPRESSIONS™
HUNGRY
