{"id":149,"date":"2014-10-02T16:45:14","date_gmt":"2014-10-02T14:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=149"},"modified":"2025-08-18T12:55:32","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T11:55:32","slug":"poignant-puppetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=149","title":{"rendered":"Poignant puppetry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tonight at 10.30pm and tomorrow at 4.30pm \u2013 choose one of these times and go watch <em>Elnora &amp; Nirvana<\/em> in City Hall 1.<\/p>\n<p>OK, it is in Afrikaans and the programme says English. Don\u2019t let this stop you. If you managed to get through matric Afriks, you\u2019ll understand just fine. And anyway, the work communicates with so much more than fickle spoken language.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>A curious tilt of the head. A cooling blow on tea. A struggle to get oneself to standing. A sensual dance in memory of one\u2019s \u201cfirst time\u201d. A cheeky side glance. A slap.<\/p>\n<p>Nieke Lombard controls puppet Elnora and plays character Nirvana. She is great on stage; she\u2019ll fool you with a&nbsp;picture of innocence, but when she works Elnora, a wise and deeply perceptive soul emerges.<\/p>\n<p>Elnora repeats to Nirvana, \u201cNog nie vandag nie? (Not yet today?)\u201d She is aware of her impermanence. Her anguished stubbornness won\u2019t let her accept help though, and Lombard plays and manipulates this with poignant precision. She access\u2019s Elnora\u2019s fear and confusion with depth \u2013 hard to do with a puppet made of sponge and paper. Yet amazingly, she manages this perfectly.<\/p>\n<p><em>Elnora &amp; Nirvana<\/em> is really interestingly crafted \u2013 the boundaries are blurred between whether Nirvana believes her alive, or if we\u2019re meant to imagine Elnora is real. Lombard\u2019s work is so clean that we often do\u2026<\/p>\n<p>A profound reflection on ageing and mortality, the piece is terribly moving. You should leave with a large lump in your throat or tears wetting your cheeks. But you\u2019ll laugh a few times before that, don\u2019t worry.<\/p>\n<p>This is powerful, distilled, evocative and transformative theatre at its best. <strong>&#8211; Sarah Roberson<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.capetownfringe.co.za\/events\/elnora-nirvana\/\">Click here for production info.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tonight at 10.30pm and tomorrow at 4.30pm \u2013 choose one of these times and go watch Elnora &amp; Nirvana in City Hall 1. OK, it is in Afrikaans and the &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=149\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[152,229,597,885],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5300,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions\/5300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}