The Antique

Archive

Every show that has graced our stage, rated by the people who were there.

The Return of Elvis Du Pisanie
Drama

The Return of Elvis Du Pisanie

SEP 2026

Written and Directed by Paul Slabolepszy

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Ashley Dowds • 75 min • English

Who would have believed that a simple act of switching on a car radio could change the course of your life!?

In the darkness, a car pulls up at a street lamp. Eddie steps out into the void, to confront the horror of his own fears. He stops at the place where, almost 30 years ago, the universe shifted … the night he became hopelessly lost. Haunted by an event that changed everything, he begins to find words to name it. A miracle happens, but perhaps not in the way you might expect. Eddie du Pisanie - a forty-nine year old East Rand salesman - is retrenched and decides life is no longer worth living. He writes a suicide note to his wife and is about to gas himself in his car in the garage, when he switches on the car radio. The Elvis Presley song he hears does more than take him back 30 years - it recalls an event in his childhood that changed his life forever. Abandoning - for the moment - the idea of suicide, he drives the 200 kilometre journey to the town in which he grew up, to a lamp post opposite the ex-Carlton Bioscope in Witbank. Can we change our own destinies...? “Elvis” du Pisanie is about to find out…

PUBLISHED REVIEWS

‘Ashley Dowds delivers a tender and nuanced performance in The Return of Elvis Pisane’ - THE CAPE ROBYN


‘Theatre doesn’t get much more brilliant than Elvis Du Pisanie’ - BIANCA COLEMAN


‘gritty, funny, tragic, universal and something that will bring you to the brink of tears in all its dimensions’ - ROBYN SASSEN

‘Staan terug, of 'n vuishou gaan jou tref!’ - BEELD, AJ OPPERMAN

“from the whisper under lamppost until the reunion with the King of Rock and role...I was mesmerized by the greatness of the Word and Performance...."THE RETURN OF ELVIS DU PISANIE"   is THEATRICAL PERFECTION.  Sylvain Strike


‘It is worth saying clearly: this is a show about a man who has written a suicide note. It begins in a dark place. But Slabolepszy and Dowds handle that darkness with such honesty and, ultimately, such generosity of spirit, that the journey through it becomes something genuinely uplifting. You leave not with heaviness but with something closer to gratitude for the past, for the moments that shaped you, and for the fact that someone put this story back on a stage.’

BARRY MORISSE 

4.9 (23)
Takeaways
Comedy

Takeaways

SEP 2026

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Nate Levinrad • 70 min • English

Takeaways is a bold debut from Cape Town-based comedian Nate Levinrad. He’ll overshare with you what it’s like growing up as a tiny, unathletic Jew in small-town Western Cape and how he came to be a comedian by way of a primary school talent show. Other takeaways include, but are not limited to, the cheapest way to bribe someone at home affairs and a comprehensive list of uses of Bicarb. Directed by South African comedy veteran Conrad Koch.
4.3 (3)
Superfan
One Man Show

Superfan

AUG - SEP 2026

A one man show written by Mike Van Graan with John Maytham

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John Maytham • 60 min • English

Written by Mike van Graan and performed by John Maytham, this inspiring one-man show uses the story of South African rugby as a powerful lens through which to explore the country’s own journey. Blending storytelling, humour and drama, it traces the parallel growth of a nation, a rugby team and one ordinary South African, asking what the values that built a world champion might teach us about building a stronger country.

4.9 (89)
Wolf Biscuit
Comedy

Wolf Biscuit

JUL - AUG 2026

A play by Pierre Malherbe

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Andrew Roux and Brett Williams • 60 min • English

FROM THE WRITER OF BUCKET BOY AND APPLE FACE COMES A THRILLING NEW INDIE COMEDY.

Written and directed by Pierre Malherbe, WOLF BISCUIT is an absurdist two-hander bro-mantic comedy-drama starring Andrew Roux and Brett Williams. Roux and Williams play work colleagues trying to survive in a cut-throat industry and navigate their love/hate relationship. These intrepid characters will take you on a surreal journey through betrayal, deception, and different-sized coffee mugs.

If you’ve ever put a shoe in a postbox, spilled beer on a Labrador, or placed a baguette in a car boot in Kraaifontein, then WOLF BISCUIT is the life-altering show you’ve been waiting for.

Malherbe’s darkly comedic production toys with the fragility of uneasy companionship, balancing the mundane and the menacing, pulling the audience into a bizarre and unpredictable world for an experience that is as unsettling as it is hilarious.

4.9 (52)
Seun
Drama

Seun

AUG 2026

Based on the book by Dana Snyman

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Wilhelm van der Walt • 70 min • Afrikaans

PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THIS PRODUCTION IS PERFORMED IN AFRIKAANS


Winner of five awards at the Momentum Aardklop 2025, including Best Theatre Production, Best Actor, Director and Audience Favourite.

Winner of the Woordfees award for Best One-Person Show at the Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees 2025.


In Seun, Dana Snyman shares the part of his story he has never spoken about: his experiences in the 1980s. This was the era of P.W. Botha's finger pointing, the Voëlvry tour, AWB rallies, negotiations, and the last days of conscription. Dana is dishonourably discharged from the army, but not before a stint in Ward 24. This raw, revealing memoir asks: How does a boy become a man? A boy who can't catch a girl's attention? A boy who isn't good enough for the army? Seun is a moving account of coming of age during the death throes of a political system, about masculinity and honour, and about the love that ultimately overcomes it all.


Beautifully directed by the award winning Nico Scheepers ( The Glass Menagerie/ Speelgoed van Glas, Nêrens- Noordkaap) adapted by Johann Smith( Die reuk van appels)

4.8 (10)