Aesop’s Fables, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and La Bohème

Male Ensemble, Aesop'€™s Fables , Isango Ensemble. Based on the script by Peter Terson. Adapted and directed by Mark Dornford-May, music by Pauline Malefane and Mandisi Dyantyis

The Hackney Empire is showing three productions from the award-winning Isango Ensemble, an internationally renowned South African theatre company.

A re-imagining of Puccini’s La Bohème, set in the townships of South Africa, will be performed in repertory alongside a musical adaptation of the socialist novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and new musical Aesop’s Fables, until Sunday 3 June.

The Isango Ensemble have played to full houses across the world, breathing new life into established Western classics by setting them in a South African or township setting.

The score of La Bohème is played by an orchestra of marimbas and steel pans, a style that earned the company an Olivier Award when used in The Magic Flute at the Young Vic in 2007 and Duke of York’s Theatre in 2008.

Irish writer Robert Tressell, author of the novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1910), spent much of his early life in Cape Town, and was a staunch critic of British imperialism there. Isango’s adaptation moves the action forward in time from the former Cape colony to apartheid era 1950s Cape Town, and includes popular and Struggle songs from that time.

In new musical Aesop’s Fables, Aesop is portrayed as being Greek, though Isango’s production, scripted by Peter Terson, is set within the recent history of South Africa. Historically a slave, Aesop journeys to Mount Olympus, meeting animal characters on the way and learning in the process that ‘liberty comes with responsibility’.

After rave reviews and high praise from all quarters, there’s still time to catch the Isango Ensemble and enjoy the range and fascinating historical scope of these three productions.