Myth and magical realism, gangsters and transvestites, tragedy and triumph, exile and exuberant elegy – these are but a few facets of the theatre kaleidoscope that National Arts Festival patrons will be turning their gaze to this year.

With a solid and varied Main programme, and a Fringe line-up popping and fizzing with bonbons, this year’s theatre offering is on track to be as invigorating, eclectic, challenging and progressive as ever.

Look out for a whopping six premieres on the Main programme, including special new stand-up comedy and spoken-word slots featuring international acts. Festival director Ismail Mahomed explains that these two art forms are rapidly developing a vast following in South Africa.

As the event is charged with being a platform for artists as well as catering for the changing needs of audiences, he says, “We have tried to strike as much of a balance as possible between the classics and contemporary works”.

Snapshot of Main programme:

Touch My Blood: Sunday Times columnist Fred Khumalo premieres this play based on his novel. The piece, directed by James Ngcobo, promises a fascinating journey back to the eighties, when township gangsters held sway and Afros and bell-bottoms were the order of the day.
Rhodes Theatre, 2-4 July

The Olive Tree: Ntshieng Mokgoro, the Standard Bank Young Artist for Drama, has crafted a play that draws on indigenous ritual, culture and mythology to tell a powerful and empowering tale of female spiritual damage and rebirth.
Graeme College, 6-8 July

I Am My Own Wife: Celebrated actor Jeremy Crutchley tackles a mammoth 40 roles in Doug Wright’s Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning single-hander based on conversations with Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, an eccentric East German transvestite who survived Nazi and Communist oppression. Directed by Janice Honeyman.
Graeme College, 2-4 July

The Return: Though we may physically reside here, how many of us are exiles in our own land, ignorant of what makes our countrymen tick? Veteran playwright Fatima Dike explores this theme in this account of an expat who returns home to Langa, with his African-American wife in tow. Roy Sargeant directs.
Rhodes Box, 2-4 July.

Wit: Steven Stead directs Clare Mortimer in US dramatist Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning ode to living to the fullest, told by a cancer patient who will die before the show is over. Prepare for a life-affirming experience.
Rhodes Box, 9-11 July

Iago’s Last Dance: Inspired by the malevolent villain Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello, Mike van Graan draws a parallel in modern-day South Africa. But just who is the baddie here? Using the “plague” of AIDS as his theme, the award-winning writer uses a trio of playlets to poke, prick and prod our collective conscience once more.
Graeme College, 9-11 July

First Love: This adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s early novella, as staged by Ireland’s Gare St Lazare Players, should provide lovers of meaty drama with a rewarding helping of the dramatist and writer’s distinctive black humour. Starring Conor Lovett; directed by Judy Hegarty Lovett.
Rhodes Box, 3 and 6 July

Do You Know Billie Holiday?: Mwenya Kabwe, one of the hottest new faces on the South African theatre scene, stars as legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday in this play written and directed by Nigel Vermaas, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Lady Day’s death. Accomplished actress Michele Maxwell also stars in this fictionalised account of Holiday’s time in a women’s reformatory for drug possession.
Rhodes Theatre, 5-7 July

The Famished Road: Ben Okri’s Booker Prize-winning novel has been adapted for the stage by Helen Iskander, who admits that the weighty tome is “unstageable”. Nevertheless, she was so captivated by this magical-realist tale of “spirit child” Azaro that she took up the challenge. Expect an evocative close encounter of the supernatural kind. Starring Mncedisi Shabangu, James Cuningham and Lindiwe Matshikiza.
Rhodes Theatre, 9-11 July

Something Dark: Charismatic Ethiopian poet and spoken-word artist Lemn Sissay wrote and performs this play about his alienating experiences being raised by a white family in England, and his subsequent journey of discovery as he traces his family.
Victoria Theatre, 3 and 4 July

Jimeoin on Ice: Comedy comes to the Main, and life will never be the same again! Irish-Australian stand-up comic Jimeoin – who won the critics’ award at the Edinburgh Fringe – makes his South African debut with this show. South African comedian Dave Levinsohn will break the “ice”.
Victoria Theatre, 3 and 4 July; Guy Butler Theatre 5 July