In his Metamorphoses, Ovid tells how Daedalus, master craftsman, artist, and architect, created the Labyrinth at Crete so cunningly that he was barely able to escape it himself after he had built it. Daedalus was then imprisoned in a tower to prevent his knowledge of the labyrinth from spreading. With escape routes via land and water obstructed by Minos, he constructed two immense sets of wings that he and his son, Icarus, might use to flee by air. He warned his son not to fly too close to the sea, lest the water soak the feathers, nor too close to the sun, lest the heat melt the wax holding them together. But Icarus forgot himself in his airborne elation, the burning orb melted his wings, and he drowned in the sea. A father laments the consequences of his creations, which do more harm than good.
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About the Author
Megan Lewis is a South African-American theatre and performance studies scholar based at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Performing Whitely in the Postcolony: Afrikaners in South African Theatrical and Public Life (University of Iowa Press, 2016) and Magnet Theatre: Three Decades of Making Space (with Dr. Anton Krueger, Intellect Books/Unisa Press, 2016). A Distinguished Teaching Award winner, Dr. Lewis is a multidisciplinary educator with a passion for inspiring intellectual curiosity and advocating for the performing arts as a powerful force for social activation and change. Each summer, Lewis leads students on an intensive study abroad program, called Arts & Culture in South Africa, that uses the performing arts as a lens through which to examine questions of social justice, race, class and gender politics, history, language, memory, and the role of the arts in our global world.
About the Author
Malcolm Purkey began his career in South African theatre as company manager for Theatre Workshop '71 and in 1976 founded Junction Avenue Theatre Company. He joined the staff of the Wits drama school as Lecturer in 1984, becoming Professor and Chair in 2000. From 2005-2013 he was the Artistic Director of the Market Theatre, and in 2014 became Dean of AFDA Johannesburg, the South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance. His published plays with Junction Avenue include Randlords and Rotgut (1980), Sophiatown (1988), and Love, Crime and Johannesburg (2000). Recently, he directed Little Foot for the Market Theatre.