Maynardville Open-Air Theatre

Maynardville Open-Air Theatre

The Maynardville Open-Air Theater is an outdoor theater in Maynardville Park, Wynberg, Cape Town, South Africa. It seats 720 people and is most well known for its annual Shakespeare in the Park plays.

Contents

History

Park grounds

Before it was named Maynardville, the land where the park now sits was government ground, first administered by the Dutch East India Company and after 1795 by other British authorities. In July 1807 two young officers of the Cape regiment, Lieut. Louis Ellert and Lieut. Ernst Egger, married two sisters named Gertruida and Catherina Baartman.

Just prior to his marriage, Ellert was granted a piece of land adjacent to the camp, where he built a cottage named Rosendal. The uneven ground was leveled and cultivated by slaves on either side of a stream known as the Krakeelwater, which flowed through the small estate. For several years Ellert and his wife shared the house with her sister and husband until, in 1810, Egger decided to purchase a piece of ground adjacent to Rosendal for his own use. Ellert was later killed in the war on the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony, but because he had transferred ownership to his wife, the widow Ellert continued to manage her small farm successfully after her husband's death.

Her brother-in-law was not so efficient in his farming operations and this, coupled with his extravagant life style, forced him into bankruptcy. His land was not lost to his family, however, because his sister-in law purchased his property. In order to do this and to support her large household, the widow Ellert took a bond on the property from a Cape Town businessman named James Mortimer Maynard.

In 1836, Maynard took over Rosendal from the widow Ellert, who had become insolvent. He later bought another property from her to make up the site for his home, Maynard's Villa. Maynard died on 9 September 1874. As he failed to produce an heir, his estate went to his nephew, William Mortimer Maynard Farmer, who was already an established business man by this time.

Farmer married the daughter of Major Richard Wolfe, then resident magistrate and civil commissioner of Wynberg. Their daughter Enid married John Bernard, a major in the Royal Marines; they had two sons, Gerald and Brian. Enid Bernard died in 1949. The dilapidated homestead was demolished in 1954 after Gerald sold Maynardville to the City Council of Cape Town, which preserved the grounds as a public park.

Theatre

In the 1950s, Cecelia Sonnenberg and Rene Ahrenson, well-known South African actresses, decided to convert the little-used park into an open air theatre. After negotiating with the city council, a stage and raked auditorium were constructed for their first production. Rene and Cecelia persuaded Leslie French, an English stage and film actor, to come to Cape Town to direct and act in the theater's first play, The Taming of the Shrew, which opened in 1956.

Cecilia and Rene retired in the mid-1990s and most of the theatre's drama department closed when they left. However, the park still maintains its Shakespeare series through the Maynardville Theatre Trust, which was created after Cecilia retired.

The park today

Maynardville has been designated as a "priority park" by the City of Cape Town, which means it has a development framework in place, spearheaded by the Maynardville Park Action Committee. This includes repairs to the facilities, incorporating the Wynberg library, creating a new gateway entrance, upgrading Rosendal Cottage, developing the historic avenue around Wolfe Street, and constructing a new pavilion.

Performances at the park are overseen by the Maynardville Theatre Trust, along with Artscape.

Play chronology

References

Previous production reviews

Coordinates: 34°00′24″S 18°27′52″E / 34.006762°S 18.464499°E / -34.006762; 18.464499


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