'Mies Julie' picks up three Naledi gongs

18 March 2014 - 02:02 By Staff reporter and Eugene Yiga
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A GOLDEN NIGHT AT THE LYRIC: Award winner Vinette Ebrahim, judge Lakin Morgan and Tim Moloi, who sang at the event
A GOLDEN NIGHT AT THE LYRIC: Award winner Vinette Ebrahim, judge Lakin Morgan and Tim Moloi, who sang at the event
Image: SYDNEY SESHIBEDI

South African playwright-director Yael Farber's Mies Julie won three Naledi Theatre Awards last night.

Farber took the bones of August Strindberg's 1888 play, in which an aristocratic woman has sex with a manservant, and localised it. She set her work on a Karoo farm, on Freedom Day in 2012. That night, Miss Julie and her father's favourite worker taunt and play with each other with devastating consequences.

Bongile Mantsai, who plays John, won the best male actor award. Farber won the best director award and the play was awarded best production of a play.

Jersey Boys, produced by Showtime Management, won the best production of a musical accolade, beating Pieter Toerien and Eric Abraham's Blood Brothers.

Grant Almiral won for best performance in a musical for his role in Jersey Boys, and Bryan Schimmel and Rowan Bakker jointly won the best musical director award for the same production.

My Name/Naam is Ellen Pakkies won gongs too, with Lizz Meiring taking the executive director's award for raising awareness about abuse of women.

A lifetime achievement award was presented by Naledi chairman Dali Tambo to Mbongeni Ngema for his body of work, including Sarafina and The Zulu.

Another theatre stalwart, Luke Ellenbogen, won the lifetime achievement award at Sunday night's 49th Annual Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards, at Cape Town's Baxter Theatre.

"I am part of a real clan and without them I would be nowhere," Ellenbogen said of his family, many of whom share his passion for the arts. "My advice to those starting out is to use your friends and work together to make great theatre."

At the Cape Town awards the prison drama Rooiland won five awards: Brendon Daniels (lead actor in a play), Charlton George (supporting actor in a play), Tertius Kapp (best new South African script) and Jaco Bouwer (best lighting design and best director).

"At the risk of sounding like a rugby captain, all credit has to go to the boys," Kapp said.

Other winners in Cape Town included Patricia Boyer (supporting actress in a play for The Miser) and Jennifer Steyn (lead actress in a play for The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore).

Philip Dikotla won the Fleur du Cap Theatre award for best performance in a one-person show for Skierlik (at the Soweto Theatre from March 19 to April 13). "Is this mine?" he asked when presented with his silver medallion.

"I'd say hello to all my friends. but they're in Joburg. So I'll just say thank you to everyone who's everyone."

The Rocky Horror Showwon three Fleur du Cap Theatre awards from nine nominations: Brendan van Rhyn (lead actor in a musical), Andrew Laubscher (supporting actor in a musical) and Daneel van der Walt (supporting actress in a musical).

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