all my ex lovers are dead

Tue Feb 14, 18:30 - Sat Feb 18, 20:00

Toneelhuis

ABOUT

It’s the type of danger you create for yourself when enraptured with your work, hyperfocused on the task at hand, unable to see the bigger picture, dwelling on the past and sipping nostalgia; the type of danger that causes you to profess all the loves you have ever had to the love you have right now.


‘all my ex-lovers are dead’ is a one-hander that explores love, desire, poor life choices, and how many cups of tea it takes to wake up and smell the coffee. The production melds storytelling with soundscapes of feelings and multimedia projections of moments as our protagonist, They, unravels the history of their love life before our eyes. Sometimes consumed with the picture they compose for themselves, sometimes searching for a memory in a cup of tea, They tell us tales of vulnerability, longing, and what we do with the love we have left over when the lovers are gone. ‘all my ex-lovers are dead’ toys with the bittersweet taste of memory, teases out the tangible ways we hold onto the feeling of others, and tinkers with the sensations that bring their breath rushing back to our necks.


A selected text for Artscape’s New Voices Programme in 2021 and STAND Foundation’s Pen To Paper Programme in association with NATi and Vrystaat Kunstefees in 2022, ‘all my ex-lovers are dead’ was written slowly, over the course of six years–pieced together from scrap paper prose scribbled at the edges of receipts, woven together with unfinished voice memos saved on and downloaded from multiple phones, and laced with more internal monologues than any single person should allow themselves to indulge in.


Written and directed by Dara Beth and performed by Maggie Gericke, ‘all my ex-lovers are dead’ is an all-too-honest story of all the loves we’ve had, all the loves we could have had, and all the loves we should not have hoped to have had told over the course of an evening and many, many cups of tea.

DIRECTIONS

all my ex lovers are dead
Toneelhuis
55 Shortmarket St, Cape Town City Centre, Cape Town, 8000
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