Mike van Graan’s To Life, With Love featuring John Maytham, the highly regarded Cape Talk host and trained actor, returns due to popular demand at the delightful pop-up theatre Societas Theatre in Kloof Street, Cape Town.
Directed by Josh Lindberg, the play premiered at Artscape in February and has played to sold-out houses at The Drama Factory, at the Franschhoek Literary Festival and at venues along the Garden Route, earning generous audience and critical responses wherever it has been performed.
To Life, With Love will now have a three-week run from 12-30 August at Societas Theatre, a pop-up theatre in the hall of the NGK Church, 55 Kloof Street, Gardens (behind Tiger’s Milk and Postnet, opposite the Lifestyle Centre with its ample parking).
Tickets are available through Quicket.
John Maytham commissioned multiple award-winning playwright Mike van Graan to write him a one-person play with a blank canvas regarding themes. Inspired by Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal and drawing on Helena Dolny’s book, Before Ever After, Mike developed To Life, With Love, a poetic piece featuring the character Thomas Michael Faulkner. Thomas has experienced love, professional success, personal loss and social affirmation. Then, in his sixties, Thomas is diagnosed with a dread disease. There is a great chance of recovery, but Thomas is confronted by his mortality. With many good years ahead, Thomas makes choices about how he will live.
Media reviews and written audience responses to the show include:
a beautifully rendered mediation on life, end of life and how to live meaningfully and transcend grief and disappointment… Van Graan’s writing is exquisite. Direction (and design) by Josh Lindberg ignites the one hander with energy… Maytham’s performance is the sheer terror and fear that accompanies the advent of illness… Maytham nails it in his visceral portrayal – through his body as vector of pain’ Robyn Cohen, The Cape Robyn
Outstanding. So relevant, so thought-provoking. John Maytham (is) brilliant. Thank you. Everyone should see this show.
Amazing. Thought-provoking. Inspiring.
Outstanding work. Wonderful script and faultless performance. Thank you!
Extraordinary writing, acting, production! What a team. Blown away by all this talent. This show needs to be seen!
A most moving performance that really hit in the solar plexis. So insightful and empathetic. It will stay with me for a very long time. Thank you!
Thought-provoking and relatable. Just wow!!!
Riaan de Villiers, the minister at the Groote Kerk in Adderley Street, has always wanted to use the hall as a theatre space. He met Van Graan after attending a staged reading of Abraham’s Promises, and the collaboration took root with My Fellow South Africans already having been performed in the hall.
‘The longer a play has a life, the longer it earns income and contributes to a sustainable livelihood’, said Van Graan. ‘But there are so few theatres for the number of independent theatre-makers out there. It makes sense then to access church, school and other infrastructure to create some kind of circuit for theatre, and to access new audiences.’
Twenty percent of the box-office income will go to the Groote Kerk and its support for orphanages in different parts of the province.
*Societas is a Latin word that means ‘society’ and could also mean fellowship, association and alliance. It Roman and civil law, societas means partnership.
The hour-long performance runs:
Tuesdays to Saturdays at 19:15 (no performance 23 August)
Saturdays at 16h00 (no performance 23 August)
Tickets are available through Quicket.
Tickets for the preview on 12 August cost R107.85
Tickets for Tuesday to Thursday cost R R134.26
Tickets for Friday & Saturday cost R165.95
Age restriction: No under 13s
For more information or to use the show for fundraising or educational purposes, contact Mike van Graan at 0829003349 or email art27m@iafrica.com. Also see https://mikevangraan.co.za