Name of production: Pharmakon

Playwright: Workshopped by cast

Director: Ensemble (Script, as well as directing, is done by the UFS Drama and Theatre Arts Honors group)

Venue: Scaena Theatre, UFS Main campus

Language: English, Afrikaans, Zulu

Genre: Drama

Age restriction: 14 L

Date and times:

17 August 2016         19:00

18 August 2016         19:00

19 August 2016         19:00

Price: R40.00 for adults / R30.00 for students & scholars / R25.00 for pensioners.

Bookings: Computicket (0861 915 8000).

Imagine your mother is combing your hair. With every stroke of the brush, a lesson is learned, a truth is told, and an idea is rooted. As she pulls the comb through your locks, she shapes your thoughts, she doctors your beliefs and she nurtures your values. Be calm, and still your impressionable young mind. Allow the warm flow of the rake to organise your perception of the world. Permit her to pour a sweet medicine into thine ear. For, after all, “Pharmakon” is the Greek word for both cure and poison. After a volatile year of university life, seven students battle with issues of indoctrination, identity and equality. Pharmakon is a workshopped production inspired by the tragic tale of a fanatical mother who killed her children to save them from a world without certainty. In various vignettes they explore the contemporary South Africa of a new generation. A generation who have inherited broken ideals, blind values, impotent power-struggles, and a protest culture where young minds, trapped and silenced, see public demonstrations as the only way to have their voices heard.