MARKET Theatre has over the years staged plays that captivated audiences, and yet were regarded as perverse and lurid to those who rejected conventional and it’s apocryphal conjecture.
Set in a time when being thrown in the nick was a norm, Cincinnati was an infamous where throngs of dissident patrons of all creed and colour partied at the height of a cut throat and atrocious era, as experienced by the writer.
Thembise, (Chuma Soptela) reveals jaw dropping acts on how on how solicitors earned a living through their surreptitious and dishonest deeds. Pieter (Francois Jacobs) is left in the lurch by his uncle on his arrival in the bustling city. It is not long before he meets the boisterous Candy (Christien le Roux). Hedley (Brandon Auret) a perfunctory and emotive musician tries to get back into the music scene, and is given flack by Vicky (Robin Olivia Heaney), while Arthur (Theo Landey) is a morose bookkeeper, in an ominous state after a raid, and it is only the chumpy Abraham (Paka Zwedala) that still believes that the club will continue to operate.
However Abraham Thembsie, and the psychosomatic Pat (Odelle de Wet) leave younger audiences to ponder on expressions that are an affront while others take it with levity.
Cincinnati defies the idea that iniquity has distanced people and left an irrevocable and grotesque past. It dares us to broach these subjects for discussion. From August 19 to September 20, take time out, and stride into Cincinnati at the Barney Simons Theatre.