The Return of Elvis Du Pisanie.

The Return of Elvis du Pisanieperformed by the author and directed by Lara Foot, wasfirst performed at the National Festival of the Arts in Grahamstown in July, 1992, before embarking on a national tour that lasted over eighteen months. The play has the distinction of having won more awards (in a single year) than any other play in the history of South African Theatre – 1993 Vita, Fleur du Cap and Dalro Awards included Best New South African Play, Best Actor, Best Production, Best Director – as well as The Star “Tonight”/IGI Life Vita Award for Comedy. It was also presented – by special invitation – in Washington DC and Chicago, USA.

In 2004, Paul Slabolepszy revived the play and took it on another national tour. In 2015, Lionel Newton performed “Elvis” at the Laager (now Mannie Manim Theatre) at Johannesburg’s Market Theatre.

“A milestone for South African Theatre…!”

(Humphrey Tyler SUNDAY TRIBUNE)

“He mesmerises his audience…!  Not to be missed…!”

(Garalt McLiam THE STAR)

“The Great South African Novel come to life onstage…!”

“Profound poetry… Equal to anything by Beckett or Pinter…!”

Nothing less than the new Bosman… what a performance, what a play…!”

(Iain MacDonald THE ARGUS)

“Buy, beg or steal but get your hands on a ticket for this magnificent play…!”

(Billy Suter  NATAL MERCURY)

“A vigorous, robust tour de force… a memorable evening of theatre…!”

(Terry Herbst EASTERN PROVINCE HERALD)

“A tale – fragile and beautiful as blown glass – of dreams lost and found…”

(Brenda van Rooyen PRETORIA NEWS) 

A story that moves from pure nostalgia, through extreme heartache, to unbridled joy… TheReturn of Elvis du Pisanieis at once – sad, amusing and gloriously uplifting…!

Eddie du Pisanie, an East Rand salesman in his mid-forties, is retrenched and decides life is no longer worth living. He writes a suicide note to his wife and is about to gas himself in his car in the garage, when he switches on the car radio. The Elvis Presley song he hears does more than take him back 30 years – it recalls an event in his childhood that changed his life forever. Abandoning, for the moment, the idea of suicide, he drives the 200 kilometre journey to the town in which he grew up, to a lamp post opposite the ex-Carlton Bioscope in Witbank, there to retrace his life, to try to find out what went wrong, how it went wrong, and – perhaps most importantly – why it went wrong…

Can we change our own destinies…?  “Elvis” du Pisanie is about to find out…