{"id":2103,"date":"2017-07-02T19:14:57","date_gmt":"2017-07-02T17:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=2103"},"modified":"2017-07-02T19:14:57","modified_gmt":"2017-07-02T17:14:57","slug":"fire-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=2103","title":{"rendered":"Fire House: Hot topic, Hot stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Katlego Letsholonyana in a scene from Fire House. Photo: Jan Potgieter.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With the recent ravaging fires along our western cape and southern coastlines fresh in mind, and the terrible Imizamo Yethu fires just a few months earlier, Fire House<\/em> brings us a story about South Africa\u2019s unsung heroes \u2013 our firefighters.<\/p>\n

Fire House<\/em> is a crafty little piece of work \u2013 props are used for great comic effect (the toy wire fire truck) and the set is constantly reimagined in scene changes with the ladder and a few red crates. Some clever lighting, a smoke machine, and one of the best gobos I\u2019ve seen, create the terror of a burning building. The actors help too.<\/p>\n

Katlego Letsholonyana, Ryan Dittmann & Tebogo Machaba have wonderful chemistry together; I haven\u2019t seen such good ensemble work for a while. As performers working together with timing and engagement, they\u2019re excellent; as their characters, there\u2019s a camaraderie and trusting friendship that is truly believable. They tease and mock each other about their cultures and having pretend-girlfriends. Jacob (Ryan Dittmann) is teased because his friends\u2019 cat has a water purifier, “ah, that\u2019s a white cat!”. Brains (Tebogo Machaba) is teased because he\u2019s scared of cats \u2013 they make him catch a cat stuck in a tree \u2013 he says, “no man, it\u2019s witchcraft”. This hilarious (second or third) scene hooks the audience from the start, and we\u2019re pulled into their lovely friendship. Mamabolo (Katlego Letsholonyana) is the joker, the youngster, the class clown, and Brains and Jacob look after him, and give him lots of shit, like big brothers do. They\u2019re silly, they need to be, to have some relief in between the heavy horrors they experience every time the alarm sounds.<\/p>\n

Fire House<\/em> uses the medium of a play about firefighters to address the difficult societal contexts that create the conditions they work in and the necessity for them. Fighting township fires that spread like, well, wildfire, through tightly packed shack housing made from cheap, flammable materials; and dealing with faulty resources like the Ladder Four truck that needs parts that just don\u2019t arrive from the government supplier, or the helmets that break (although I\u2019m sure that was a prop failure that was very well managed by the cast\u2019s improv).<\/p>\n

At the Fire Station, they watch the news show, ‘Banana Republic’. Our cast of three transforms into newsreaders and politicians, and make burning commentary about Zuma’s abuse of SA \u2013 but as Brains cynically asks, what party is there when they\u2019re chasing fires? “The ANC, the DA, the EFF are nowhere to be found”. Politicians playing power games care not for the people, and not for the civil servants who daily brave the coalface of an angry public, and who give their lives to protect us (of course not all are altruistic, of course there are corrupt officials, we\u2019re not idealistic or na\u00efve and neither is the show).<\/p>\n

Fire House<\/em> uses fire metaphors to comment on a country in flames without hope of being doused anytime soon – it’s relevant, has excellent pace and is hilarious. Light a fire under your ass and go check it out.<\/p>\n

— Sarah Roberson<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fire House<\/em> has two more shows: 03 July at 12.00 and 04 July at 20.00. Book here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Director: Kirsten Harris
\nFeatured Artists: Katlego Letsholonyana, Ryan Dittmann & Tebogo Machaba
\nCompany: Hijinks Theatre<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the recent ravaging fires along our western cape and southern coastlines fresh in mind, and the terrible Imizamo Yethu fires just a few months earlier, Fire House brings us … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[256,301,322,411,424,581,708],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2103"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}