I see you!

I see you!, directed by Sylvaine Strike, conceptualised by David April, and performed by April and Gregory Keke Mabusela, is an exercise in light-heartedness.

Billed as a show that would see ‘David April in conversation with Sylvaine Strike’, many would have been pleasantly surprised to discover that, while there is a conversation of sorts taking place on stage, it’s not a very conventional one and it’s certainly not a conversation that includes the audience.

I see you! takes the form of a short tech-run that pays no mind to the audience watching on. As you try and watch or attempt to unpack the performance, numerous interruptions get in your way. Strike is calling for a different kind of lighting while movement and vocal coaches Shanell Winlock-Pailman and Bongile Lecoge-Zulu are calling out all sorts of instructions to their actors. Maybe it’s the feeling that you’re spying on a private process, or perhaps it’s the frankly absurd sight of David April being bossed about by a movement coach as him and Mabusela maintain deathly-serious eye-contact, but there’s a moment in I see you! where a fever-pitch establishes itself, making everything seem just a little bit absurd.

Theatre has the capacity to showcase the raw and necessary power of storytelling in society, and it also has the power to demonstrate the necessity for play, experimentation, and free-spirited collaboration in the world. Every now and then a play like I see you! comes along and manages to demonstrate all of those things at once.

DIRECTED BY | Sylvaine Strike
CONCEPTUALISED BY | David April
MOVEMENT AND VOCAL COACHING BY | Shanell Winlock | Bongile Lecoge-Zulu
PERFORMED BY | David April | Gregory Keke Mabusela
MUSIC | L’elisir d’amore, ACT II: Una Furtiva Lagrima (Remastered) by Luciano Pavarotti
ADDITIONAL MUSIC COMPOSITION BY | Gregory Keke Mabusela

WRITER | Dave Mann
VIDEO ENGINEER & EDITOR | Noah Cohen
STILLS PHOTOGRAPHER | Nina Lieska