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PARADISE IS

CLOSING DOWN

PARADISE IS CLOSING DOWN (1977/English)

(*There is a bilingual text to be released on demand)

Paradise is Closing Down is strictly protected by copyright.

Applications for performance rights, both professional and amateur, should be addressed to:

PD Uys Productions

productions@evita.co.za

But please read the play with pleasure.

Download the text of Paradise is Closing Down

The play is savagely bitter and bitingly funny.

– Sean Hignett, New Statesman, 24 August 1979

The parallel of Tennessee Williams immediately springs to mind. A hard, searing and relentless investigation of (South African) whites through the bottom of a bottle, in which their bitchiness is played out on each other against a background of racial tension ... one feels that his extraordinary method of investigating apartheid by concentrating on the people who are part of the problem rather than part of the solution, is perhaps the most powerful way it could be done.

– Martin Doyle,  The Scotsman, 18 August 1979

The subtle, underlying political comment by Uys is ever present ... a beautiful satire.'

 – Robert Underwood, Insight,  September 1979

Conflicting attitudes on the situation in South Africa are expounded at length — expounded with wit, with bitter humour, often with fury. It is engrossingly entertaining and very very well done. Its message is one that we could ignore at our peril.

– Raeford Daniel,  Rand Daily Mail,  7 July 1978

As in all the best political writing, the talk is as amusing as it is trenchant and it is delivered convincingly.

– B A Young,  Financial Times, 17 September 1979

There's hope for our English-language theatre after all. Here is an indigenous play that has relevance, wit, elegance and considerable audacity ... a courageous and intelligent play.

– Michael Venables,  The Citizen, 7 July 1978

Paradise is closing down , currently receiving its American premiere at Syracuse Stage, is a powerful and touching play ... a stunning presentation of South Africa as a paradise which is closing down because of bureaucratic bungling, political blindness, social conflict, powerful forces beyond its borders and the most basic of dramatic and moral themes: human weakness.

– David Feldman,  Syracuse New Times  (USA), 21 January 1981

Paradise is a cleverly constructed piece of work with a crystal-clear theme running through — that the time bomb ticking under the white 'paradise' is fast running out.

– B M,  Evening News (Edinburgh Festival), 21 August 1979

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