Requiem for the Impossible

Upcoming shows in 2025
Thursday 13 February 20:00
Friday 14 February 20:00
Saturday 15 February 14:00 followed by artist talk
Saturday 15 February 20:00

Homecoming Centre Cape Town (formerly Fugard Theatre)

Tickets available here

Ticket holders kindly download the free Requiem for the Impossible app to prepare for the live show:
> Apple
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A story born out of love and a yearning for answers, Requiem for the Impossible is an interactive and musical experience performed on stage by internationally acclaimed musicians Lucy Kruger (SA) and Liú Mottes (NL). It is based on the true story of 3 South African working sailors who went missing at sea in 2015. It blends an entirely new original musical score (the requiem) with documentary-style voice recordings, poetry and interaction through a dedicated phone app that allows the audience to be part of co-creating the moving experience.

Created as part of a special collaboration between award-winning Dutch and South African artists, Requiem for the Impossible honours and memorialises skipper Anthony Murray, first mate Reginald Robertson and young deckhand Jaryd Payne, and brings to the public consciousness the psychological condition of Ambiguous Loss.

Established by American family therapist, Dr. Pauline Boss, author of Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief, Ambiguous Loss differs from ordinary loss in that there is no verification of death, leaving those left behind frozen in grief, endlessly veering between hopelessness and hope. It’s a psychological state that impacts hundreds of thousands of people globally, in the devastating circumstances of war, occupation, migration across the sea, catastrophes arising out of climate breakdown and many more.  

Psychologists call the emotional purgatory of not knowing whether a loved one is dead ambiguous loss.

Requiem for the Impossible was initiated by well-known South African music journalist Diane Coetzer, the sister-in-law of the yacht’s skipper Murray. A portion of the lyrics for the Requiem score are based on the poetry of Jay Savage, Murray’s brother, and the performance includes excerpts from personal recordings done by the skipper during several ocean voyages before the fated final voyage in 2014/2015

“The Requiem feels like when you walk into a church, or walk into nature, like things are very big and vast and you just feel very small. It made me feel grateful for the tiny bits of time that I have on this planet”

Credits

Requiem for the Impossible is a project by affect lab
Writer and project initiator
 - Diane Coetzer
Poet and lyricist - Jay Savage
Musical score - Lucy Kruger & Liú Mottes
Narrative & research direction - Natalie Dixon
Interactive design & concept - Klasien van de Zandschulp
Creative producer - Juliette Brederode
Technical producer - Blaise Janichon (TGTC)
Creative coding - Luciano Pinna
Performance visuals - Sebastiaan Smink, Lukas Ruoff
Visual identity - Jana & Koos
Graphic Design - Guanyan Wu
Booklet Design - Daniel Elkayam

Supported by AFK (Amsterdam Fund of the Arts), Creative Industries Fund NL and Stichting Stimuleringsfonds Rouw and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (ZA).