SHOW: Little Foot - Higginson is one of 10 writers from around the world participating in this festival, and Little Foot is to be performed at the National Theatre prior to the  Olympics.

VENUE: Main Theatre,
Market Theatre
DATES: July 13 – August 19
VENUE: The Main Theatre

The National Theatre has agreed to allow the Market Theatre, in association with the Grahamstown Festival, to put together a South African production of their own – a production that will be an extended version of the original play.

This powerful and poetic new South African play is situated on a farm in the Cradle of Humankind.

It takes the audience down into the vast network of caves where the three-million-year-old hominin “Little Foot” was discovered.

Out of sheer co-incidence, the production will be released at the same time that Little Foot’s remains will finally be freed from the rock.

It has taken 13 years to extract the hominin’s calcified bones.

In Higginson’s play, we experience the caves through the eyes of a group of young South African university students – who went to school together and are having a reunion on New Year’s Eve, exactly a year since they last saw each other.

One of them (Wizard) brings along a new girlfriend from England (Rebecca).

He wants her to meet his oldest friends, not suspecting that a terrible trap is being set for him.

What starts as a practical joke soon leads to events that appear to have tragic consequences.

As the students delve deeper into the caves – and we travel deeper into their psyches and their shared histories – a Chorus of ancient hominins steps through the walls of the caves.

Little Foot draws on Greek theatre, philosophy, paleontology and South African mythology to create a  portrayal of modern relationships.

For this production,  Higginson and director Malcolm Purkey are collaborating with Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year award-winner Neil Coppen to create a multi- media event that will include a composer, videographer, sound designer, sculptor, editor, choreographer, as well as a lighting, costume and set designer.