Multiple award-winning Magnet Theatre returns the Baxter Flipside, with their latest show, mAnJE! MaNJe (an epic), for 10 performances only, from 17 to 25 April 2026, with evening performances at 20:00 and Saturday matinees at 15:00.

This follows their sold out at Magnet Theatre in November 2024, when the production garnered seven nominations at the 2025 Fleur du Cap awards for Best new SA script, Best Production, Best Ensemble, Best Lighting Design, Best Set Design and Best Actress and winning Best Original Composition for composer Neo Muyanga.

Booking is now open through Webtickets online or at Pick n Pay stores.

Directed by Mark Fleishman with an award-winning musical score composed by Neo Muyanga and immersive visual projections by Vienna-based, South African artist, Marcus Neustetter, it was unanimously praised by audiences and the press.

The Mail and Guardian described it as “revolutionary, groundbreaking”, while The CapeRobyn called it “vivid, exceptional theatre” and Media 24 went on to say, “This is an ensemble tour-de-force that you don’t want to miss.” Business Day said, “This is a production that must surely have a life beyond its short first run’, Broadway World was equally encouraging, “Spectacular Extravaganza of mythmaking and retelling … completely original work that excels in every area.”

A wonderful ensemble of musicians and singers combine with the Magnet Theatre Youth Company, Jennie Reznek and Mwenya Kabwe, to perform what has emerged as a spectacular, utterly exciting and exceptional theatrical experience. It follows on from the huge success of Mark Fleishman’s Oedipus at Colonus #aftersophocles (nominated for eight Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards with the Magnet Theatre Youth Company winning for Best Ensemble).

mAnJE! MaNJe (an epic), draws on the story of the ancient Greek inventor and super-engineer, Daedalus, to stage a profound and prophetic lament on the human condition in the age of the machine, big data and the climate catastrophe.

Meat, fire, metal and plastic. What will come to define this modern era? As humankind moves closer towards the end of the Anthropocene and the beginning of the Plasticine, will we be remembered for our ingenuity or for having engineered our destruction?

Seeded at the Centre for the Less Good Idea in their 10th anniversary season in 2023 as an 11-minute epic, it was originally made possible by grants from the National Lotteries Commission and the National Arts Council of South Africa.

“The production is built around a series of mythic stories of the so-called Minoan civilization on the island of Crete, between 3000 and 1100 BCE, and their relationship with the figure of Daedalus reimagined from a perspective in Africa,” says director Mark Fleishman.

He continues, “These stories were never part of a coherent collection, a continuous mythic poem for instance. And yet they do suggest a chronology that might be understood as a cycle of stories. In other words, we can assemble the various story fragments into episodes that together form an epic construction.”

An epic is an extended narrative in poetic form that traditionally combines the spoken word and music. It is made up of a multitude of episodes that are not chronological and are linked by musical or choreographic interludes, often choral in nature. The actions of the epic narrative span great and varied geographic distances and temporalities. The epic lies somewhere between history and myth and its fundamental function is recognition of identity and human commonality in relation to an epoch or a culture or even, perhaps, the planet. It is usually, as in the case of mAnJE! MaNJe, an image of the past intended for the future.

“In the production we are trying to create an epic form for the 21st century that reveals something about the contemporary moment and our sense of time,” says Fleishman.

“We suffer from a lack of duration, the experience of time passing, of lingering slowly and intently or attentively. We zap instead from point to point or from one intense moment to the next. And yet perhaps this has always been part of the epic form which traditionally advances through paroxysm – explosions of energy driven by transgression. The epic performance was always hybrid, involving speech, song, music, dance, poetry etc. Now however, we might find a translation of speech itself, the Interpretation of poetic form in multiple not always textual modalities. What happens when the spoken word is translated into the moving body or the visual image or other materialities for example? Perhaps this reveals a general shift from the textual to other modalities of perception in our time. A kind of Instagram epic? Or do we hold onto the word as a form of resistance to the dominant, revelling in ever evolving stylistic modes of expression, as in hip hop, rap or kwaito for instance?”

Booking is now open via Webtickets online or at Pick n Pay stores. For discounted block bookings, fundraisers and charities, contact Mark Dobson on 021 680 3972 or e-mail mark.dobson@uct.ac.za.

Production Information

mAnJE! MaNJe (an epic) creative team credits:

Director: Mark Fleishman

Musical Composition: Neo Muyanga

Visual Projections: Marcus Neustetter

Text: Jennie Reznek, Mwenya Kabwe

Choreography: Ina Wichterich

Musical Direction: Neo Muyanga & Lungiswa Plaatjies

Set and Costume Design: Craig Leo (assisted by Grace Lorenzo)

Prop makers: Sipho Ngxola, Belinda Clark, Luya Nogodlwana

Scenic artists: Yolandi van Jaarsveld, Kim Bednell

Lighting Design: Themba Stewart and Mark Fleishman

Musicians: Lungiswa Plaatjies, Sibusiso Matsimela

Singers: Zolina Ngejane, Luvo Rasemeni

Cast: Jennie Reznek, Mwenya Kabwe with Azola Mkhabile, Buhle Stefane, Emmanuel Ntsamba, Karabo Hope Banda, Lusanda Soboyise, Melusi Molefe, Mihlali Bele, Sanele Phillip, Yvonne Msebenzi

mAnJE ! MaNJe (an epic) will be performed from 17 to 25 APRIL 2026 in the Baxter Flipside.

Performances are at:
Evenings at 20:00
Saturday Matinee at 15:00

NOTES TO EDITORS

Magnet Theatre is one of South Africa’s best known independent physical theatre companies that has been operating in and outside of South Africa for the past 39 years. In addition to creating original, award-winning productions, Magnet runs multi-layered educational programmes that are aimed at the transformation of young people’s lives and the theatre industry. Magnet Theatre programmes help youth bridge the gap to tertiary education and employment in the creative economy. To date, its youth development programmes have been instrumental in facilitating access for 37 first generation university attendees. On average over the last 5 years, an incredible 92% of all graduates either find employment (short or long contracts/permanent employment), are self-employed or furthering their studies.

Magnet Theatre is generously supported by: The National Lotteries Commission, National Arts Council, Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, HCI Foundation, TK Foundation, The Potjie Foundation, MAID Foundation, HCI Foundation, HCI Foundation Community Transport Support Programme, Western Cape Government Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport, Rolf-Stephan Nussbaum Foundation, Andrea Fine Theatre Bursary, Ampersand Foundation, The City of Cape Town, Business And Arts South Africa, Redefine Properties, University of Cape Town, Ben Strauss Legal and the Carl & Emily Fuchs Foundation.

For further media enquiries, interviews, or image requests, please contact Shireen Fisher on 021 680 3963 or e-mail shireen.fisher@uct.ac.za.

Fahiem Stellenboom
fahiem.stellenboom@uct.ac.za
072 265 6023
Baxter Theatre Centre
http://www.baxter.co.za