Wits Theatre Complex’s consulting director talks theatre among the Pitso Ya Kalaneng (A Call to the Theatre) Festival
With the Pitso Ya Kalaneng (A Call to the Theatre) Festival happening in February at the Wits Theatre Complex, consulting director Malcolm Purkey spoke to us about his love of theatre.
Wits Theatre Complex enters stage left to entertain us as it hosts the Pitso Ya Kalaneng (A Call to the Theatre) Festival. An annual orientation week programme, curated by a team at Wits’ theatre and performance.
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The festival is divided into a theatre festival, which runs from February 10 to 14, and a dance festival, which runs from February 19 to 22, and February 27 to March 1. This month-long showcase of the arts is said to have something for everyone.
The complex’s consulting director, playwright and actor Malcolm Purkey, says he is delighted to be back at Wits, where he spent two decades working. The renowned director, who has a MA in theatre studies from the State University of New York, said his role is to reanimate the venues and make things happen. “The festival has 20 projects, including music, performance, physical theatre, dance, and much more.” Though the programme’s primary audience is the new students to the School of Arts, all students, as well as the community at large, are invited.
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This Melville resident’s first performance in theatre was in an amateur production of Pride and Prejudice, when he was about 17 years old. From that moment on, the arts have left him captivated. The English Academy award winner said his passions were further ignited while, as a student at Wits, a teacher taught Waiting for Godot. “It completely battered me. What an amazing production. What an amazing play. It sparked me to write my first play.” Which he wrote when he was 19 years old, to a fair bit of success.
Theatre made the former Dean of AFDA realise that it could speak about topics, and engage in big issues, in a way that was quite special. It has always been in his life in some capacity, be it through his time at Wits, his work as artistic director of the Market Theatre, or when he founded and ran Junction Avenue Theatre Company from 1975 to 1999.
The most important, and far reaching, production he has been part of was one created by the company, called Sophiatown. It toured for many years in Europe and America, and played for many seasons at The Market Theatre. It is now a national set work for Grade 11s in English studies, and continues to be produced, most recently at the State Theatre in 2024, with Aubrey Sekhabi as director.
This French Academic Fellowship recipient believes theatre, and other literature forms, are part of what drives the conversation for us to understand our world, and perhaps make us more aware of the challenges and dangers, while making us better people. “Making us think independently as well as laterally. There is something about live theatre that talks directly to the soul.”
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