From grief to resistance: Cape Town theatre unveils powerful human stories on stage

Calender Girls explores themes of grief, friendship, courage and community. Valentine’s Day is getting a cheeky twist this year with the return of “Calendar Girls” to the Playhouse stage. Inspired by the true story of eleven Women’s Institute members who posed nude to raise money for the Leukaemia Research Fund, thecomedy-drama isa reminder that sometimes the most unexpected acts of bravery come from ordinary women who are simply tired of watching the people they love suffer.

The production was last staged at the Playhouse in 2017 under the direction of Darryl Spijkers, and thanks to strong audience demand, it’s making its return with Spijkers once again steering the ship. And for him, this story is not just afeel-goodtheatre moment. It’s personal.

“This story is so close to our hearts,” he says, adding that many cast members have lost family to cancer. At the centre of the play is grief, the kind that sits quietly in your chest and changes your whole world. It follows women who decide to honour a late husband’s memory by raising money for something simple: a couch in a hospital waiting room.

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A small comfort for families forced to live between hope and heartbreak. But as Spijkers explains, their mission ends up becoming something much bigger than they ever expected. “They ended up making a lot more money,” he says.

“I think they showed the power of people in the community and that’s what it’s all about.” And that’s the thing about stories like “Calendar Girls”. They don’t sugar-coatcancer.They don’t pretend death is poetic. They simply show what happens when people are pushed to their emotional edge and still choose to love, to laugh, and to show up for each other anyway.

In a world overflowing with bad news, Spijkers believes the play lands differently now than it did years ago. “For me, in a world where you turn on the news and it’s just bad news… a story like this really resonates as it reminds us that we are not alone and we need to stand together,” he says.

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