An old man in the guise of a 19th century London night watchman explores memories, history and fragmentary traces of trans-generational trauma in the entangled lives of three characters: a young woman – a foreigner - stranded in the Cape Town of the 1950s, her absent seafaring husband, and their son, The Watchman.
Using video, sculpted objects and live performance, the tableaux and actions ‘scratch out’ images of suburban life: post-Second World War economic austerity and optimism, the repressed memory of the colonial genocides, and the enforced displacement to the Terra Nullius of those found guilty of crimes, crimes of survival, and crimes of rebellion
Lost with All Hands (lost without hands) was developed at ZINK, a shed theatre on Signal Hill which has closed because of a crime wave in the area. It can be seen as a bookend in a series of performances, including Shakespeare’s Chair, Mama Papa Kaka, Death and Utopia(The Young Pioneers) produced at ZINK. Lost with All hands was first performed to a full house at the recent ICA Live Art Festival at UCT.John Nankin (1947 -) is an artist and performer who has worked professionally as a freelance set/production designer and set builder in film and theatre, and as a director, screenwriter and occasional actor. He was a co-founder of the experimental Glass Theatre in Cape Town and the Possession Arts collaborative group in Johannesburg. Recent work includes Mister Rhodes; BOX; Re-Possession; 4:14 Mute (simulator); Mama Papa Kaka (a leg to stand on); Shakespeare’s Chair; Surfeit (The Burden of Excess); Death and Utopia (The Young Pioneers). He played the settler Lethbridge in Mikael Subotzky’s WYE.
Sam Alexander has a BA from the Centre for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies at UCT. He is currently completing an MA in English Literary Studies.