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Using a unique mixture of clowning and melodrama, Fresco Theatre weaves a poignant love story dealing with the stigma of infertility, a married couple’s volatility, jealousy, dreams, passion and love. With comedy, mime, live accordion music, puppetry, and a set that transforms to create striking images, there is something for everyone in this exciting new piece of theatre from South African based company Fresco Theatre. A devised show by Fresco Theatre Company.
Performed by: James Cuningham and Helen Iskander Running Time - 75 minutes, no interval
“An ingenious two-hander with a delicacy and grace we more often experience in good film than good theatre… Both beautifully antique and instantly refreshing,
the play reassures us with the knowledge that there are still some of us who can find infinity in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower… a triumph.” 
Background Information About four hours’ drive north of Johannesburg, lies the Tropic of Capricorn, land of the Venda people, and land of the giant Baobab trees, one of the greatest symbols of Southern Africa. The abundant myths that surround the tree became the starting point for the show. Some say that God planted the Baobab upside down, due to its unusual appearance. Researching the Baobab trees prompted us to question our own sense of roots and identity, provoked in addition by the apparent mass exodus of South Africans to greener pastures in a time of social and economic turbulence. Whether we leave or don’t, try to and then return, the very need to leave is often based on the myth that better things exist beyond the space we inhabit. This issue of travel led us to the world’s greatest and possibly most reluctant nomads, the Romani (better known to the Western world as Gypsies), whose persecution over the centuries has often forced them to move on and make new homes. ‘Baobabs Don’t Grow Here’ is a story of flight, of displacement, of love, of cultural encounter, of innocence and experience, of loss and gain – all in search of a dream. |
aobabs Don’t Grow Here is the story of a Romany couple who run away from their Eastern European home to find the giant Baobab tree of Africa,
which they believe will grant them fertility, and their children strength. The two actors play many different characters as the story winds it’s
way through Europe, North Africa, and finally to South Africa. Their spellbinding journey is an allegory of cultural encounter, of roots and identity,
of chasing dreams and of human nature.