THE PINK COUCH plays “Miskien”
Bellevue –kleine zaal
Monday 5th –Thursday 8th at 15:00
Director: Tara Notcutt
Play: Gideon Lombard & Albert Pretorius
Can you tell me a bit more about the group : The pink couch?
Tara: “We all studied together and when we graduated we decided that we liked making theatre together and wanted to continue doing so. So this is our first show, and we have done it for the last three years. And it played Grahamstown Fringe, all the festivals in South Africa and now Amsterdam.”
Why did you decide to form a group together?
Tara: “We have the same opinion on theatre, same view, and we really enjoyed working together and had the same outlook on working as each other.”
What is the view you share on theatre?
Tara: “To make theatre for a young hip cool younger audience. Young young young young. Young is like our thing. There is a lot of theatre that is made for people who are in their fourties and up, but we thought it’s cool that when you are like 20 years old instead of going to watch a music concert you can watch a play. And have the same kind of fun experience.”
I didn’t really notice it was especially for a young crowd, how does that come across in the show?
Tara: “I think we… it’s not particularly made for a young audience but someone who’s young would come along and not feel excluded and they could feel it actually speaks to them as well. As well as someone older, which is great. “
You won the “Best of Grahams town Fringe”. What was the main reason the jury picked you?
Tara: “Because we have a really good show which is really different to everything else that you see. It’s a little bit of everything; it’s a bit of a comedy, a bit of a tragedy. It’s really fun but also very serious. I think the overall picture is something that you don’t often see. “
How did you make the show?
Tara: “Myself and the two actors, we made it together, so I would suggest scenario’s and they would improvise scenes. So I would say: ‘Ok, you’re in a bar, drinking and you are watching rugby.’ And the text really developed out of that. And it keeps developing, every time we do it we sort of change a little something here and there. The guys like to improvise.”
Miskien, does that mean Misschien? (lucky guess…) Can you explain the title to people who haven’t seen the show yet?
Tara: “It is about the moment where something happens and you kinda go; Ok there’s a ‘Yes’ and a there ‘s a ‘No’ but there is a big grey area in between. There are no rules for the grey area, there is nothing you can follow. It’s about the grey area that you don’t really know what to do. That’s why miskien.
What’s the story?
Tara: “Is about two best friends and they are in dead end jobs, dead end relationships, and the clostest people they have are each other. And basically what happens is that it all get’s a bit confusing and that’s where our story starts. “
Why is the spoken language South-African and English?
Tara: “Within the young generation who is now growing up there are English people like myself who listen to African bands and African kids who grow up reading ‘To kill a mocking bird’. It’s an interesting mix, you’re not English and you’re not strictly Africans, we call it a mengelmoes. Where everything start to mix up and I find that very interesting. The play was made for my final graduating piece, so that was the focus of it in the very beginning and it’s very successful because people watch it and go ‘Oh my God it’s the kind of story nobody is telling.’ About that kind of mix.”
What feeling would you like the audience to take home?
Tara: “I hope that the audience might think about relationships they have in their life. Even if that means that maybe later they rang a friend and say “Let’s go have a beer because I like to spend time with you.” For me it’s a story about connecting, and if somebody goes out and they want to connect more with someone they know then I feel we’ve done our job.”
Did you develop the show with help from subsidy?
Tara:“No, no, no. We made it for the exam and we’ve sort of done it on our own steam from then on. So, we’ve had a little bit of funding every now and then, but most of it is money that we raised from doing it before.”
Why should people really come to see the show?
Albert: “I think it’s something everyone can relate to, I think it’s just a beautiful story.”
Gideon: “It doesn’t matter that it’s two guys, it could be two girls, a guy and a girl. It’s something that people, especially around this age, can relate to.”
Your reporter isn’t really around ‘this particularly young age’, but would highly recommend this show because it’s very well played and the story develops beautifully. For everyone who has trouble deciding what to see at the Amsterdam Fringe, go see Miskien. Maybe you’ll really like it.