MEM HALL

50 MINS

FRI 1800

SAT 1900

SUN 1000

R 110

Untouchable Productions proudly presents the award-winning performers Gerard Bester and Craig Morris alongside their striking new collaborator, Rayzelle Sham, in Roslyn Wood Morris’ satirical gem, Bar Flies. Wood-Morris dives into the murky underbelly of a social watering hole to reveal the world of three desperate lonely souls. A barman, trapped by the codes of the bar that render him invisible; a flamboyantly macho cowboy, with a flair for the Argentine Tango; and a guarded woman, whose sensuous alter ego is released as she nurses her wine as if it were mother’s milk; all hover at the edge of existence, ever short of bridging the gaps between them. The one minute they’re keeping time to the music, the next they’ve slipped out of the real time of their unfulfilled lives and into the vacuous space of the bar. They flirt, fight, drink and forget, fuelled by the answers they find at the bottom of the glass.

Wood-Morris deftly exposes a poignant and dark desperation within the expertly crafted comical confusion. The nuanced performances magnificently capture three characters teetering at the edge of their bar stools, frantically trying to make some tangible connection.

Adrienne Sichel of The Star writes: A runaway hit....Wood-Morris has her own distinctive quirkily detailed humour which blossoms into desperately funny cartoony comedy... pure theatrical gold

Choreography by Roslyn Wood-Morris and Cast; Set Design by Roslyn Wood-Morris; Lighting Design by Barry Strydom

ROSLYN WOOD-MORRIS

Roslyn is passionate about education in the arts. She is currently Head of Arts and Culture at St Marys School Waverley where she teaches Dance and Drama to high school learners. She also runs a successful afternoon Dance and Drama programme, as an extracurricular activity at St Marys. She has directed numerous original physical theatre works at school level as well as musicals such as Chicago and The Sound of Music.

Her strength lies in her ability to collaborate and strongly believes in the voice of the performer as creator.

Over the last twenty years Roslyn has performed in and choreographed for the Dance Umbrella. Professionally Roslyn is Co-founder of Untouchable Productions where she has produced plays such as Hero and Blood Orange performed by Craig Morris. In 2008 Roslyn won the Gauteng MEC award for Best Choreography for Bar Flies which debuted at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. Currently Roslyn is mother of Daniel (2 ½ ) and Nicholas (5), which is a whole production in itself!

CRAIG MORRIS

Craig Morris is a versatile performer who includes Physical Theatre, Mime, Contemporary Dance and Clowning in his repertoire of performance and choreographic skills.

Craig is currently involved in numerous Theatre, Corporate theatre and Industrial theatre productions as a physical performer and Classical and Contemporary Mime artist, script writer, director and Master of ceremonies, he has MC'd for companies such as Barlowworld, Visa, Partinform and Toyota to name a few.

Craig has appeared in numerous stage productions in South Africa and abroad.

As a Physical Theatre performer Craig was a founder member of The First Physical Theatre Company; a groundbreaking collective who left an indelible mark on the contemporary South African Physical Theatre and Dance landscape. He has received awards for the MEC Gauteng Choreography and Dance Awards for Best Male Dancer in a Contemporary Style in 2005 and 2008 respectively.

Craig is also highly active in the educational field teaching movement theatre workshops extensively at Primary, Secondary and Tertiary levels.

Craig performed in Attachments 1-7 which won a Kanna Award for 2007 for Best Dance performance! Craig has also performed his two Physical Theatre One-Man shows, Hero and Blood Orange at various venues in and around Southern Africa to great success.

Craig was also selected to perform with Cirque du Soleil.

Currently, Craig is the director of his own production company (Untouchable Productions) which focuses on the production and performance of original South African theatre work, as well as education through theatre. Craig also directs productions with Walking Tall, an educational project devised by The Palaeontological Scientific Trust (P.A.S.T.). Craig is also active in Environmental theatre projects and is currently performing a Climate Change Action Play in collaboration with Well Worn Theatre.

Highlights for Craig include choreographing and acting in A Species Odyssey and Homo Sapiens, two French films about human evolution (the first breaking viewership records in France). Craig finished post-production on AO The Last Neanderthal, a full length feature film set 30 000 years ago, which was released internationally late September 2010.

Craig was recently involved in three productions at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. He directed Convincing Carlos, starring Mpho Osei-Tutu, which won an Ovation award in 2010, performed in Athena Mazarakis' groundbreaking Flicker, directed by Gerard Bester, featuring alongside Athena and Andrew Buckland, and performed in The Pollution Revolution, a children's festival production about Climate Change.

Craig is also active in the field of motivational speaking and in-house training as a facilitator and workshop leader and trainer.

GERARD BESTER

Gerard graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand Drama School in 1990 with a BA Dramatic Arts Hons. He is an actor, arts administrator, director and teacher.

Gerard has worked for various organizations as a project manager. These include Soweto Youth Drama Society, Volkswagen Music Active Programme, Dance Umbrella, Moving into Dance Mophatong and Arts Alive. He is presently Creative Director of the Hillbrow Theatre Project, a drama programme for children and youth from the inner city of Johannesburg.

As an actor, Gerard has worked for Robyn Orlin’s City Theatre and Dance Company. Notable works include, Daddy I’ve seen this piece six times before and I still don’t know why they hurting each other (1999), Babysitting Caspar (2002, Hidden Beauties/Dirty Histories (2004) a short dance film commissioned by Arté in France,), and Baby Sitting Baby Louis (2009). In 2006 he performed in Coupe for which he received a Naledi Award for Best Comedy Performance in 2007. Gerard was a finalist at Spier Contemporary 2007. In 2002 he created, with Sue Pam-Grant, the acclaimed one-man show The Art of Taking Off.

Notable directing projects include Coming Out Again, an HIV/Aids play initiated by the Gay and Lesbian Archives, Spectator, a physical theatre production for the Wits School of the Arts, internationally acclaimed Beautiful Me for Gregory Maqoma, and the award winning Attachments (nos. 1-7). He has recently directed Athena Mazarakis’ Flicker for the National Arts Festival and Nhlanhla Mahlangu’s Chant for Julidans. He also directs for AREPP, Theatre for Life.

Gerard teaches at the Wits School of Arts.