Former TV presenter and actor Pat Pillai.
Image: Supplied
THERE is something deeply familiar about former TV presenter and actor Pat Pillai’s My Cape Town. Perhaps it is because, beneath the laughter, the satire and the beautifully crafted characters, the production is not only about Cape Town - it is about all the people of South Africa.
*My Cape Town *is about memory, migration, displacement, community and the ways in which ordinary people make extraordinary lives within the circumstances they inherit.
Presented at Durban’s Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, My Cape Town is a 90-minute journey through the people and places that shaped Pillai’s own imagination of the Cape Flats. Written and performed by Pillai, the production draws on the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, bringing to life a colourful gallery of characters from Rylands, Athlone, Phoenix and beyond.
So magnetic was the 90‑minute storytelling that ENCA’s marketing maestro, Khalick Sheriff, instantly sensed My Cape Town would sweep the cobwebs off theatre’s forgotten avenues - and without hesitation, he cast his weight behind Pillai.
What makes the production particularly compelling is its physicality.
Pillai does not simply tell us about these people; he embodies them. Through gesture, voice, rhythm, posture and comic timing, characters emerge almost instantaneously. The body becomes a site of memory, allowing us to move between generations, communities and experiences without the need for elaborate scenery or theatrical machinery. It is a beautiful example of how physical theatre can make storytelling immediate, intimate and accessible.
And then there is the music.
Brilliant pianist Melvin Peters’ musical direction adds another layer of storytelling to the production. With Logan Byrne on double bass and Mandla Matsha on percussion, the live score becomes almost another character on stage. The music moves across genres, drawing on jazz, gospel, popular music, classical influences,-African musical traditions, and even some short pieces in Indian vernacular.
This relationship between music and storytelling is one of the production’s greatest strengths. The musicians are not simply accompanying the actor; they are storytellers in their own right. Their music gives emotional texture to the memories being recalled, reminding us that communities are often remembered not only through their histories, but through the sounds, songs, celebrations and rituals that filled everyday life.
Watching My Cape Town from Durban also creates an interesting dialogue between two cities. What initially appears to be a very specifically Cape Town story begins to feel remarkably Durban. The characters may belong to Rylands and Athlone, but their experiences resonate across South African urban spaces. The movement of people, the hurst of racist legislation, the search for belonging, the building of new communities and the negotiation of identity are not confined just to one city. People in cities across the land shared the same pain.
In this sense, the production becomes particularly powerful when viewed through the history of apartheid urbanisation. The forced removals and spatial engineering of apartheid did more than relocate people physically; they reshaped communities, families and identities. Pillai’s fictional community newspaper and its collection of characters allow us to encounter history through the intimate rather than the monumental.
There are echoes here of what many experienced in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s: migration between cities, families searching for opportunity, communities being separated and rebuilt, and people learning how to create a sense of home in spaces that were never necessarily designed for them.
Yet My Cape Town refuses to become a heavy historical lecture.
Instead, Pillai uses satire, humour and exaggeration to expose the absurdities of the worlds his characters inhabit. We laugh because the characters are funny, but also because they are recognisable. The humour allows us to look at difficult histories without reducing the people who lived through them to victims. These are people who loved, argued, prayed, celebrated, struggled, dreamed and carried on.
That is perhaps the most beautiful aspect of the production.
Pillai reminds us that history does not only belong to politicians, activists and famous figures. It also belongs to the waiter, the aunty next door and the family sitting around the dinner table. His characters are drawn from the ordinary people who, collectively, create the texture of a city. The production’s imagined newspaper becomes an apt metaphor: every community has stories that deserve to be documented.
There is also something particularly poignant about this work coming to Durban. Pillai spent 10 years studying and working in the city, and his return feels less like a conventional theatre tour and more like a conversation between two places that have shaped him.
It asks us to consider what makes a city ours. Is it the streets we grew up on? The people who raised us? The languages we hear? The music that reminds us of home? The food, the religious practices, the neighbourhood characters and the stories repeated around family tables?
Or is a city something we carry with us?
Pillai’s production suggests that perhaps it is all of these things.
There is an important lesson here about storytelling too. In an age where theatre can often become consumed by spectacle, My Cape Town demonstrates the extraordinary power of a performer, a body, a voice and a story. With minimal theatrical machinery, Pillai creates an entire social landscape. His physical transformations are playful, sometimes hilarious and often deeply moving.
And when the music enters, the stage seems to expand beyond itself.
Suddenly, we are not simply watching Cape Town. We are watching South Africa remember itself.
That is what makes My Cape Town more than nostalgia. It is an act of cultural remembrance. It looks backwards, but it does not remain trapped in the past. Instead, it asks us to recognise how those histories continue to shape who we are, how we move through cities, how communities are formed and how stories are passed from one generation to another.
For those of us who have moved between Durban and Cape Town, who recognise the rhythms of South African urban life, or who grew up listening to the stories of parents and grandparents who built lives in difficult times, there is something especially resonant here.
Pillai has created a work that reminds us that the most powerful histories are sometimes the ones that happen quietly.
Saranya Devan.
Image: Supplied
Saranya Devan is a theatre-maker, dance performer, academic and proud Tamilian. She holds an MA in dance from UCT, and an MA in Bharatha Natyam from the University of Madras.
Related Topics:
