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I just saw the above headline on a article listed on Reddit. The article in question is on The Boston Globe web site.

Now, I’ve been encouraging Habibti to take legal action against cowardly tag team of Fred and Marcel but she doesn’t want to go down that route. The issue for her is this line in the letter she received, “Your apparent homophobia is quite disturbing in this day and age.”. It has hurt her deeply that anybody could even begin to accuse her of a phobia of this nature. The very idea of being phobic about anybody because of their race or sexual orientation is completely alien to her, and those who know her will know this and understand why.

Everything else they drivel on about in the letter, that has been sent to anybody with an email address it seems, can be taken as their opinion that they have a right to. This is the nature of the beast when it comes to blogging and voicing your opinion on a public forum, but the fact that they have made a personal and hurtful statement like that is what really upsets Habibti and has made me very angry.

The article on The Boston Globe goes on to state “Stopping rumours means understanding not why they’re ugly, but why they’re necessary” and all I can come up with is that the cowardly tag team of Fred and Marcel is aware of the fact that their productions that they have lined up are sub standard and crappy and the last thing they want is for somebody  who is bound to call a spade a spade running around their theatre. The fact that Fred has already cast his partner as the lead in Assassins is leaving them wide open to claims of nepotism to say the least. So to cast Habibti as a homophobe before things get off the ground is actually shrewd, specially as Habibti’s first ever post (and theatre crit) was a review of the Romeo and Juliet at Maynardville. A production that was directed by Fred Abrahamse and staring Marcel Meyer as Romeo. Is the penny dropping here for anybody else yet? Suffice to say, Habibti’s review was not favourable. She did get some stick for this, both on her blog and in person. Feel free to read the responses on the linked entry above.

This banning has nothing to do with Dalliances (a play that neither Fred Abrahamse and Marcel Meyer had seen at the time of writing the letter in response to the review), the less than favourable review of some of the actors or even that Habibti is apparently homophobic but almost entirely because she voiced her opinion on a body of work that involved Fred Abrahamse and Marcel Meyer over a year ago.

So it’s with this in mind that I will be launching a personal project over the next few weeks. I will provide a forum, free of charge, where anybody can post reviews and discuss theatre in this country. I will also make use of my knowledge of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to ensure that it comes out on top of any searches done on performers, directors, productions and venues in South Africa. This forum will however not be open to people working in the industry, so this excludes Habibti.

Should Fred Abrahamse and Marcel Meyer ever land on this site by some fluke, I would like to let them know that the reason Megan’s Head is always on the first page if you search for theatre reviews in the South African context is two fold. Firstly, she is one of the few people who actually goes to productions and then writes about it on the same day. Secondly, she is married to a geek who has made her little site Search Engine friendly. This is also why, should you ever do a search for “Snoek Braai” Megan’s Head is on the first page and not because she has a vindictive, malicious and destructive relationship with either snoek or braais but only because it’s the result of two people with very different passions that have found some common ground.

The above line is attributed to Salman Rushdie in 1990 and he should know the sacrifices a man or woman is forced to make by expressing a view or an idea. This is a man who has lived with a death sentence for twenty years just for writing a book, a piece of fiction. He had a story to tell and as a result has lived in fear and in hiding.

Now this drama is playing itself out in a small way here in Cape Town. As a rule I don’t get involved in the little dramas that play themselves out on Habibti’s blog every once in a while. She uses her space for personal musings, news and info on our life and theatre reviews.

We attended the opening night of Dalliances at ArtScape. We came home debating the play in the car, Habibti was impressed by the production whereas I saw it as a waste of time and riddled with clichés. Habibti’s take was pretty much along the “Playful flirtation.” definition of Dalliances whereas mine was “Frivolous spending of time; dawdling.” as shown on The Free Dictionary. As Habibti has been ill the last few weeks and also dealing with a monster load of work, she didn’t write her review the second we got home, as she is wont to do. But first thing in the morning she fired up Microsoft Writer while I schloofed back and forth with cups of coffee and posted her review of the play. I decided to not write anything as I had very little to say on the whole thing, till now.

Habibti’s review was posted on Sunday morning and for most of the week there was very little activity in the comments, but all that changed on Saturday afternoon. First she received an email from Fred Abrahamse which made her aware of the fact that she has been banned from The NewSpace Theatre and then she saw that Marcel Meyer had submitted the same letter as a comment on her review of Dalliances.

I don’t know much about the original Space Theatre beyond what Habibti has told me, but Google has turned up some info for me. I found this page which has a brief history of how theatres and the theatre practitioners in South Africa took on the NAT’s and the might of the apartheid regime.

Something that caught my attention:

While indigenous theatre was exploding, venues for its performance were not. The state subsidised Performing Arts Council’s were not interested in new South African work in English and certainly not interested in anything that challenged the political status quo. In 1976, for instance, the only local work to be seen on the stage of the Performing Arts Council of the Transvaal (PACT) was coloured poet Adam Small’s Kanna Hy kô Huistoe.

The few commercial managements did nothing to encourage local work, preferring to stage revivals of the work of those who were no longer alive to protest and to glean what they could from overseas playwrights who were more interested in their bank balances than their principles.

New and innovative venues began to emerge and productions of controversial local work found their homes in various spaces at the University of the Witwatersrand, at The Space Theatre in Cape Town, The Stable Theatre in Durban, after 1976, the Market Theatre in Johannesburg, and, from 1977, The Baxter Theatre on the University of Cape Town campus.

Fred Abrahamse has been quoted all over the local web as saying:

This pioneer of fringe theatre in the country has staged almost 300 productions. Now 36 years later, with the encouragement of its founding members, it has re-opened its doors to theatre goers as a welcome addition to the Cape Town theatre scene.

Now, apparently the first production to be staged at The New Space Theatre is to be Assassins (Music & Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim. Book: John Weidman). It seems to me that Fred Abrahamse is doing his damndest to go full circle with this venture and venue, by staging a 20 year old play by somebody who has no relevance to South Africa and its history, both socially or artistically. Fred Abrahamse has also decided to ban somebody from his theatre just because she may say something that may be contrary to the “party line” and for being “homophobic”. What’s next? Will the audience be required to wear armbands showing their sexual orientation. Will all critics be required to submit reviews to the Fred and Marcel Ministry of Truth before publishing?

I ask you, my trusty one or two readers, to read the offending review and the letter submitted by Fred Abrahamse and Marcel Meyer and make up your own mind on this issue.

Some people have also hinted that they see this as a publicity stunt cooked up by Fred Abrahamse and Habibti, I assure you that this is not the case. She would never ever agree to be called homophobic just to get some more “bums in seats”, but I fully expect the Fred and Marcel sideshow to claim it to be just that in an attempt to save some face.

"Censorship is advertising paid by the government." (Federico Fellini) and seeing as The City of Cape Town has contributed R30 000 towards the opening of The NewSpace Theatre this quote may have a ring of truth to it.