In The Studio: Damon Galgut - Adapting The Promise for the stage
Damon Galgut\u2019s 2021 Booker Prize-winning novel, The Promise, chronicles the slow decline of a white family on a farm outside Pretoria, South Africa, and the ripple effects of a deathbed promise \u2013 made but not kept \u2013 to give the family\u2019s Black housekeeper ownership of the small house in which she lives.\nNow, the stage adaptation of The Promise, written by Galgut and director Sylvaine Strike, is being readied to premiere at the Star Theatre, at the Homecoming Centre in Cape Town.
But how does a text so praised for its formal inventiveness \u2013 the narrative voice shifting from third to first person, and inhabiting multiple interior lives, sometimes within a single paragraph \u2013 get translated for the theatre and brought to life?
Writer Bongani Kona goes behind the curtain to watch the rehearsal process unfold. We trace Galgut\u2019s journey from the play\u2019s conception, and follow the director and cast as they workshop scenes, experiment with sound and action, and navigate the unusual set design \u2013 all in the build-up to opening night.\nThe Promise on stage is directed by Sylvaine Strike with stage adaptation by Damon Galgut and Sylvaine Strike. Original music composition by Charl-Johan Lingenfelder.
Presenter: Bongani Kona\nProduced by Catherine Boulle and Bongani Kona\nA Falling Tree production for the BBC World Service