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Reza de Wet

REZA DE WET

  (1952 - 2012)
Nationality:    South African
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    Gordon Dickerson  

Reza de Wet, died 27 Jan 2012 is a South African playwirght who writes primarily in Afrikaans. a prolific writer who has written eleven plays in fourteen years, she has won more Theatre and literary awards than any other South African playwright, including the prestigious Herzog Prize (1994), the highest honour in afrikaans literature. In the 1999 annual South Africa Theatre awards, Three Sisters Two (1997, written originally in afrikaan as Drie Susters Twee) was named Best Production of the Year and Yelena (1998), Best Play. On the Lake opened at the Rhoddes Theatre as part of the official programme of the Grahamstown South Africa National Arts Festival in 2001. Reza de Wet has also worked extensively as an actress and teaches in the Drama department at Rhodes University in Grahamstown.

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below is a list of Reza de Wet's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         African Gothic         Breathing In         Brothers, The         Crossing         Fever         Good Heavens         Miracle         Missing         My Brothers         On the Lake         Three Sisters Two         Worm In The Bud         Yelana

African Gothic

African Gothic
a farm lies in ruin. and with mother and Father now gone, a brother and sister face eviction by an officious lawyer. abandoned, they endlessly enact the rituals of punishment once visited upon them by their parents. Widely regarded as a milestone in South African theatre, the multi-award winning play African Gothic tells the story of their final 'dance macabre'. Despite overwhelming critical acclaim, it was also fiercely condemned by afrikaans conservatives as being a subversive portrayal of repression.

Notes:
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1st Produced:
the White Bear, London    03 May 2007

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Breathing In

Breathing In
In Breathing In, on a stormy night in the last bitter months of the Second anglo-Boer War, a seriously wounded General and his faithful adjutant encounter a mysterious woman and her seductive other-wordly daughter, and are confronted with the subtle methods of survival these women have been forced to adopt. accustemed to the rigours of war, the corageous adjutant now faces a terrible choice.

Notes:
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1st Produced:
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Organisations:
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1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Brothers, The

Brothers, The
During a night-long vigil preceding the funeral of their brother Kostia, anton and aleksander chekhov are drawn into an agonising and explosive confrontation with each other - and with deeply hidden aspects of themselves. as the play unfolds, it becomes a searing portrayal of human misery and the redemptive power of the creative impulse.

Notes:
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1st Produced:
the Actors' Centre, the Civic Theatre, Johannesburg    2004

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Oberon Books, London >>>, 2006   978-1840022353

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Crossing

Synopsis:
It is 1930. In the isolated north of South Africa two sisters, the severe Hermien and hump-backed Sussie, live in a cottage by a fast-flowing river, offering travellers refuge and warning of the dangers of trying to cross the river when it is high. the sisters see it as their duty to retrieve and bury the bodies of those who fail to take their heed, not least because they are haunted by the restless spirit of those who do not find rest in a named grave. So it proves with esmerelda, the beautiful, unstable assistant of a hypnotist, the Maestro, who drags her unwillingly round the country putting on shows for the rough mining communities of "diggers" who are chasing their own dreams of gold. Twenty years previously, the pair stopped by the cottage ona wild night, ignored Hermien's advice not to cross the river and disappeared into the water. Now esmerelda's wailing is keeping the sisters awake at night. as the past influences the present, the sister's seance raises the spirits of the dead giving life to the different variations on the themes of love, dependency, hate and the desire to escape creating a world of tremendous power, a world that is both familiar and strange, ordinary and magical and the surface of which is similar to the deceptively calm river under which terrible currents rage.

Notes:
Translated / Adapted By Steven Stead. Play by Reza de Wet

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Cassandra Theatre Company

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Fever

Synopsis:
My dearest sister, I have had a long and stormy voyage. . .A haunting tale of an English governess working for a Boer family in South Africa during the 1890s, and her sister Katy back home in a seaside hotel in England. When Emma dies Katy discovers her hidden diary and learns the full and terrible extent of Emma's yearning and isolation.

Notes:
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1st Produced:
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Organisations:
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1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Good Heavens

Good Heavens
Good Heavens is a comedy thriller with the dark poetic heart of a folk-tale. Two spinster sisters, with their ailing mother and simple-minded brother, await the annual visit of their youngest sister. Deeply envious of her beauty and youth, they hatch a diabolical plot to rid themselves of her forever.

Notes:
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1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
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1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Miracle

Synopsis:
these plays are folkloric and ostensibly naive pieces of afrikaner storytelling. they deal with the liberation of a character from an oppressive, matriarchal order and as such are eloquent and haunting expressions of the current generation of afrikaner seeking to free itself from the manacles of Calvanist tradition.

Notes:
Translated / Adapted By Steven Stead. Play by Reza de Wet

1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Missing

Synopsis:
these plays are folkloric and ostensibly naive pieces of afrikaner storytelling. they deal with the liberation of a character from an oppressive, matriarchal order and as such are eloquent and haunting expressions of the current generation of afrikaner seeking to free itself from the manacles of Calvanist tradition.

Notes:
Translated / Adapted By Steven Stead. Play by Reza de Wet

1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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My Brothers

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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On the Lake

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Three Sisters Two

Synopsis:
offers us a vision of the confusions and the collapse of value systems which occur at times of revolution

Notes:
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1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  9 actors

Further Reference:
-

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Worm In The Bud

Synopsis:
An Englishwoman wants to bring Victorian Enlightenment to the Africans and Boers

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: "Open Space: Six Contemporary Plays From Africa" published by Kagiso Publishers 1995   978-0798637692

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Yelana

Synopsis:
Yelena uses the characters from Uncle Vanya and focuses on the interpersonal Dramas of a small group of people connected by love, marriage and blood.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  5 actors

Further Reference:
-

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