Reza de Wet

A farm lies in ruins. And with mother and father now gone, a brother and sister face eviction by an officious lawyer. Abandoned, they endlessly enact the rituals of punishment once visited upon them by their parents. Widely regarded as a milestone in South African theatre, the multi-award winning play "African Gothic" tells the story of their final danse macabre. Despite overwhelming critical acclaim, it was also fiercely condemned by Afrikaans conservatives as being a subversive portrayal of repression. "Good Heavens" is a comedy thriller with the dark poetic heart of a folk-tale. Two spinster sisters, with their ailing mother and simple-minded brother, await the annual visit of their youngest sister. Deeply envious of her beauty and youth, they hatch a diabolical plot to rid themselves of her forever. In "Breathing In", on a stormy night in the last bitter months of the Second Anglo-Boer War, a seriously wounded General and his faithful Adjutant encounter a mysterious woman and her seductive other-worldly daughter, and are confronted with the subtle methods of survival these women have been forced to adopt. Accustomed to the rigours of war, the Adjutant now faces a terrible choice.

This title features two plays by leading South African playwright, Reza de Wet. In "A Worm in the Bud", Katy stays in England while her sister Emma travels to South Africa, leading to obsession and madness for both of them. "Concealment", also set in South Africa, concerns a doctor and his two daughters: one a spinster, the other a widow with secrets about the events surrounding her missionary husband's death.

During a night-long vigil preceding the funeral of their brother Kostia, Anton and Aleksander Chekhov are drawn into an agonising and explosive confrontation with each other and with deeply hidden aspects of themselves. As the play unfolds, it becomes a searing portrayal of human misery and the redemptive power of the creative impulse.

"Includes the plays Yelena, Three Sisters Two and On the Lake This second volume of de Wet's plays brings together three pieces which take as their inspiration the life and work of Anton Chekhov. Yelena uses the characters from Uncle Vanya and focuses on the interpersonal dramas of a small group of people connected by love, marriage and blood. The acclaimed Three Sisters Two offers us a vision of the confusions and the collapse of value systems which occur at times of revolution. Performed at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, February 2002."

The three plays in this volume are hauntingly beautiful pieces with simple fable-like characters who are touched by magical events. A circus has a mysterious significance in Missing (Mis) as a mother and daughter are visited by a blind policeman on the nights it comes to town. In Crossing (Drif) a stormy night brings a hypnotist to the home of two sisters who live by a ford, two women who bury the bodies of fortune-seekers who fail to heed their warnings about the river when it is in flood. Miracle (Mirakel) centres on a theatrical troupe and again exemplifies the author's earthiness, humour and child-like wonder.