Right now South Africa's most controversial topic is land expropriation, and Mike van Graan wades right into those murky waters with his latest satire, Land Acts.
It takes a certain degree of fearlessness to be an excellent playwright.
To choose not to deliver safe and innocuous entertainment, but to provoke the audience with words that blaze with relevance and revelation.
Right now South Africa's most controversial topic is land expropriation, and Mike van Graan wades right into those murky waters with his latest satire, Land Acts. He stirs up mud as he goes deeper and deeper, creating a splash of biting social commentary, wide ripples of laughter, and an undercurrent of facts and figures that pulls your thinking in his direction.
Van Graan loves South Africa, but has a scathing disrespect for some of its inhabitants, like racists of any hue and self-serving politicians with their vote-luring policies. Through his satire he leaves you helpless with laughter and more fully appreciating this precious, fragile country.
The master actor who runs us through all this is the lithe and lovely Daniel Mpilo Richards, who also starred in the preceding satires Pay Back the Curry and State Fracture. The...
