Say “Sunday Morning” and I think Kris Kristofferson (and Johnny Cash) coming down. It also, unfortunately, reminds me of one particularly rough Sunday slap bang in the middle of a Hilton Festival. I’d spent most of the frozen night prior, hopelessly out of my mind, climbing trees, navigating late night highways (and hotel mazes) sans headlights, elegantly side stepping one disaster only to slip straight into another. I doubt my dignity will ever really recover…

Needless to say (but I’m gonna anyway) I woke the next morning with a hefty metaphorical skewer wedged into the depths of my left eye socket, feeling like hell and looking a lot like I’d spent the night mud wrestling a wolverine. Such was the sorry state of personal affairs that I missed a show I’d booked, paid and been waiting an eon to catch :: Greig Coetzee’s The Blue Period of Milton van der Spuy. 1x mammoth effort and long, scalding shower later I managed to sufficiently gather my sh*t to make one final show, where I bawled both already overwrought eyes out over my ill-fated, ridiculously stupid affection (affliction?) for the Drama Queen (after having just broken up with someone else. yeah, don’t ask. rebounds are nasty. especially in ‘Marzitburrrrgh – why do you think I left?). That show happened to be High Diving for which Jenine Collocott won a well deserved Standard Bank Ovation Award in 2010. Just so happens she’s the directorial master mind behind this Sunday Morning.

The man coming down (or running away, as the case may be) in his classy Jo’burg New Balance sneakers is renowned actor, James Cuningham. Whom I last saw in the war torn, star-crossed deliciously sad little tale, Jutro (Polish for ‘tomorrow’ as in – “you’re gonna come down jutro.” or something…). If memory serves, starring in my own star-crossed love story at the time, I wailed a few hefty buckets of brine at James’ feet.

KBT (imagine via Kalk Bay Theatre)

So before the proverbial curtain rose this Sunday Morning, I already had an idea I was in for something worth offering up a Saturday night to. The only brief tremor of latent trepidation lay with the fact that it’s a solo piece. And the last one (wo)man play I attended left me questioning the entire Cape Town theatre scene. But I put on my coat, called my dear friend Tag and headed off to what must be one of the world’s theatrical wonders, with its intensely intimate stage within a church, beside a picturesque fishing harbour :: the Kalk Bay Theatre.

James started the show, one prop short of a full set but I doubt anyone missed it (stuck as it was with play-write(r), Nick Warren, in a snow bound car in Beaufort West) with a right royal, if silent, domestic – replete with flying crockery and obvious obscenities. Momentarily, I imagined I was back in The Bay. Lucky for me, not so lucky for Mat, a successful  commercial photographer (having peddled his artistic dreams to industry) who’d just discovered his girlfriend was pregnant. And so unfolds one man’s long walk/run to Freedom…

slow motion getaway (image via Kalk Bay Theatre)

Peppered with pithy one liners, we follow Mat’s jogging journey through Jozi as he tracks the seemingly innocuous series of events leading to the natural disaster of Suzi’s ‘hormonal hailstorm’ { aside since I live in a perpetual endocrine storm of my own, I have empathy – but boys, seriously, if you ever want to generate fireworks, call a women hormonal. we love it. no, really… } It’s a rollercoaster of emotional denial and avoidance – biting humour interspersed with wrenching pathos – until Mat finally confronts a rather unlikely demon within the shadowy underworld of a deserted storm drain. A scene eerily reminiscent of Hedwig and the Angry Inch where Hansel finally integrates with his (lost) gnosis. It’s an unusual coming of age, a post modern look at fatherhood’s heavy mantel, the full metal ‘wet raincoat’ of Daddydom and family. I’ve decided I like grown up characters…

I found it a moving piece with moments of sheer elegance. Perhaps my favourite ‘effect’, speaking to the fragility of human life, were the strewn pieces of paper, Mat trying desperately to hold them, weaving life with word and song in a high speed dash to the hospital. Suffice to say James and Jenine claimed their 2nd lot of tears from me (and Nick, stuck in his car, his first).

all dressed up… (image via Cuepix: Lauren Rawlins)

And I’ll leave it at that. Put on your tracksuit, lace up your takkies and take a ‘Sunday Morning’ run through life’s major little lessons with this masterful crew…

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Catch Sunday Morning Wednesday through Saturday til August 11th. Tickets are R95 or treat yourself to dinner and a show for R245 or R295 (two or three courses respectively).  Or take advantage of their July Winter Special: tickets for Wednesday and Thursday only R75. Book tickets online or email kbtbookings@gmail.com for more information.