Market Theatre

Market Theatre Review

Occupying an old produce market that dates from the early 1900s, the Market Theatre has a delightful vintage look. In the 1980s the Market played a key role in bravely staging protest theater against the apartheid regime—often to local and eventually critical acclaim. Plays like The Island, about Robben Island, and Sarafina!, denouncing the inferior Bantu education, made their debuts here. Today theater productions encompass everything from plays with an African focus by Athol Fugard and Gibson Kente to comedies imported from London's West End. The theater occasionally features traditional African music and jazz performances. Experimental plays test audience approval at the Market Theatre Laboratory, just across Bree Street. The complex also has a good bar and restaurant and an art gallery.