Kurt Egelhof Takes to the Stage in For Generations – a Deconstruct of Inherited Ancestral Burdens

 On Friday 8 September 2017, Cultsha Kennis had the extraordinary opportunity to finally see For Generations at the Artscape Arena Theatre, a show written and performed by Kurt Egelhof, and addresses the life stories of four generations of Egelhof men from WW2 to the present time.

For Generations formed part of the SoloAfrika Festival of Monodrama, a 6-day festival that showcased a series of one-man shows at the Artscape Theatre.

The characters were presented on stage via four mannequin stands with their accompanying costumes suited to their characters, alongside an impartial 


narrator bringing the four intermingling stories together. They appear in descending order of age: Sonny, a father of three and self-taught jazz musician who gives up his dreams to work as a soldier in World War II, Basil (also known as “baasie”) who works at the Durban Whaling station, Kurt a working actor who navigates himself through the apartheid prejudices of the acting industry, as well as his son Ashtin, a cricket player with a dream of representing post-apartheid South Africa as a cricket player. 

For Generations is a relevant post-apartheid family study that bravely investigates the element of inherited burdens of the father figures of our time, and it alerts the audience of the danger of passing down these burdens to the generations that follow.

Kurt Egelhof is also a mentor in the area of film making in the This Is My Story course offered by the Applauz Arts Initiave in Woodstock, Cape Town. 

In the course, Kurt encourages young and developing voices to explore and attempt to answer the same questions which he poses in For Generations. In his self-documentary titled “Who is Kurt Egelhof?” he mentions the integrity of the artist who “is always self-evaluating, looking within for the difference between right and wrong.”

Thank you to Natalia Da Rocha from the Applauz Arts Initiative for inviting us to see the show and for happily agreeing to this theatre reviewing opportunity on Cultsha Kennis.








See “Who is Kurt Egelhof?” here:

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugpgEg90dCk
Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgUqvIVx64E

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