Photo: Giovanni Sterelli
As desert encroaches on Cape Town, nuclear waste leaks into the surroundings, seeds die in the ground, water is rationed to the populace while the country’s military authorities hoard supplies. and taxi associations run the city – these are the final days before the environmental apocalypse of 2020.
Noah of Cape Town is one of the most original works you are likely to see. In South Africa’s first solely a cappella musical, Graham Weir’s inspired compositions and beautiful lyrics are given magnificent expression by Amanda Tiffin’s arrangements for 16 voices.
With fine performances from (among others) Christine Weir, Eben Genis, Nqobile Sipamla, Gys de Villiers and Anton Luitingh, the result is a moving theatrical experience that stands head and shoulders above the clichéd, formula-driven, tired sounds of musicals the world over.
Dicky Longhurst’s ingenious, mobile set of metal triangles that assemble and disassemble, functions almost as a metaphor for the a cappella nature of the whole creation.
The at times over-written dialogue however is not as strong as the music, and the under-developed book, with the introduction of last minute love plots, suffers credibility problems largely because the environmental message is confused with mumbo jumbo, off the wall, New Age conspiracy theories, though these are nicely spoofed in second half by an officially sanctioned psychic fraud.
Producer Simon Cooper is to be congratulated on his courage and vision to stage this ambitious and extraordinary work.
