Writer and director Dara Beth sparks curiosity with her brutally honest reflection on love, desire, and poor life choices in “all my ex lovers are dead”.
In a chat with Beth, they revealed that they were just writing short stories and bad poetry as a cathartic way to process the terrible dates she kept going on.
“I was just trying to find some meaning in all the nonsense. This story has been a long time coming, written slowly over six years, pieced together from scrap paper prose scribbled at the edges of receipts, woven together with unfinished voice memos saved on and downloaded from multiple phones, and laced with more internal monologues than any single person should allow themselves to indulge in," Beth shared.
“I had no intention of writing a play about all of my ex-lovers. I had no intention of writing anything about all of my ex-lovers. And somehow, after all that, I stumbled upon this one-hour one-hander, which romanticises, poeticises, idealises, dissects, analyses and criticises every poor life choice I’ve ever made and called loved.”
And Qondiswa James became the perfect conduit to deliver her life story this time around.
“This play has had many iterations with multiple performers, and each time it's staged anew, something fresh comes from the text that I couldn't bring to life by myself.
“Qondiswa saw me perform the text at a staged reading for feedback when it was in development as part of STAND Foundation and Vrystaat Kunstefees' Pen-To-Paper Programme in 2022 and approached me after, asking to perform the piece.
“By that point in time, I'd already cast the production for its debut but always had dreams that multiple performers would embody the text, so when an opportunity arose that I could recast, I immediately reached out to Qondiswa.
“I knew she would bring a vivacity and tenacity to the script, a subtle confidence and grounded presence that would bring out the playfulness that is built into the text but can often be overlooked if someone were to look too hard for the seriousness and melancholy that co-exists in the stories," they said.
While the audience usually gains something from any piece of work, Beth pointed out there weren't any big takeaways per se.
“The play starts with a promise that there are no epiphanies or raw, powerful endings.
"It's just one person talking about things that happen to everyone. And while I wrote this as a personal reflection, in sharing it with the audiences I've found that ‘all my ex-lovers are dead’ offers affirmation; affrimation that we all get crushes, we all lose lovers we never really had, we all embarrass ourselves terribly in the pursuit of connection, we all make mistakes big and small, and we all learn and continue to love despite it all,” they explained.
After this short run, this play will be heading to the National Arts Festival, where Beth will be performing in preparation for the UK tour in July and August.
On what else they have in the kitty, Beth revealed: “Oh gosh, possibly too many things. In terms of making new work: I'm currently directing ‘Messy’, a new one-woman play written and performed by Samantha Carlisle, which will debut in Cape Town before making its way to the National Arts Festival.
“I am also directing a new cabaret by Meg van Wyk (stage name Mistress Mae) titled ‘s'il vous plait’, which will be debuting at the festival. In conjunction with that, I'm gearing up to direct my first feature film in June, which is the adaptation of a play I've been working on for the past few years called ‘D(z)addy’.”
Where: space.com at the Joburg Theatre.
When: April 10 - 14 at 7pm and at 3pm on Sunday.
- Dara Beth's pronouns are they/them.