Back to the Swamp, and Glad to Be There
My goddaughter had never been to the theatre before. I took her to see Shrek The Musical Jr. at Peoples Theatre, and she sat through the whole show wide-eyed and transfixed. Afterwards, entirely unprompted, she told me it was so much more exciting than watching a movie. Coming from a child raised in the age of streaming, that felt like a small miracle, and a timely reminder of why theatre matters.
It is fitting that the show that prompted that response was Shrek. Few stories from the past two decades have burrowed as deeply into the cultural imagination. The 2001 DreamWorks film won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and launched a franchise that has never really gone away. The memes still circulate. The lines ("Do you know the Muffin Man?" among them) are recited with the same affection as nursery rhymes. Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy, as Shrek and Donkey respectively, created two of the most beloved voiced characters in the history of animation. What made the original film so enduring was not just its humour but its stubborn insistence on a different kind of fairy tale: one where the outcast wins, where beauty is found within, and where being a little odd is the whole point.
That distinction deserves a moment's reflection, because it is more significant than it might first appear. The fairy tale tradition, from the Brothers Grimm to Disney's golden age, has long trafficked in a very particular kind of beauty. The princess is always luminous, the prince always chiselled, and the happy ending is invariably framed as a reward for those who were already easy to love. The stories we tell children about who deserves to be loved, who deserves to be rescued, and what a hero looks like are not neutral. They accumulate. For decades, children have absorbed the quiet suggestion that the right face and the right figure are preconditions for a story worth telling. Shrek blew all of that up with cheerful, irreverent glee. Its hero is green, lumpy, flatulent, and deeply antisocial. Its princess turns out to be an ogre too. Its most romantic gesture is a declaration that imperfection is not something to be overcome, it is something to be shared. That is a radical idea dressed up in a swamp, and it remains as refreshing now as it was when the film first landed. Peoples Theatre's production of Shrek The Musical Jr. carries that spirit with warmth and considerable energy.
Back to the Swamp
This is a return engagement for Peoples Theatre, and the production has been thoroughly refreshed for its new run. The costumes, designed by leading man Luciano Zuppa himself, are vibrant and inventive, and Grant Knottenbelt's set and lighting design creates a world of Far Far Away that feels genuinely magical without losing the irreverence that makes Shrek, well, Shrek. Sandy Richardson-Dyer's reworked choreography keeps the energy high throughout, and the musical numbers land with the kind of infectious enthusiasm that has younger audience members bouncing in their seats.
Zuppa, who is making his nineteenth appearance on the Peoples Theatre stage, brings a grounded, lived-in quality to the big green ogre. Raymond Skinner is once again a revelation as Lord Farquaad, a role for which he has previously received a Naledi Award nomination and which he approaches with such committed physical comedy that you almost forget he spends most of the show on his knees, shrinking himself down to the character's famously diminutive height. The energy required to sustain that performance alone is extraordinary, and Skinner delivers it with gleeful precision. Bethany-Joy Jiyane brings warmth and playfulness to Fiona, and a particularly lovely sequence in which three different performers chart Fiona's growth from girl to woman in a rapid, tender montage is one of the production's most quietly affecting moments.
The Kids are the Point
What distinguishes a Peoples Theatre production from almost anything else you will see in Johannesburg is not just the professional cast but what surrounds them. Alongside the adult leads, every performance features a rotating ensemble of young performers -- children who step onto a real stage, in front of a real audience, wearing real costumes, with microphones of their own. This is the true heart of what Peoples Theatre does, and it matters enormously. For many of these children, this is their first encounter with professional performance, a chance to learn from experienced actors, to feel the rush of a live audience, and to understand that the stage is somewhere they can belong.
It does come with the occasional technical challenge. There were some sound issues during the performance I attended, a not uncommon hiccup when you are running as many microphone channels as a full children's ensemble requires. But the intention behind it is entirely right, and the slight imperfection is a fair price to pay for what those children experience. Theatre is not just what happens under the lights; it is also what happens in the wings, in rehearsal, and in the memory of every child who gets to say they were part of it.
Jill Girard, who has been at the helm of Peoples Theatre's productions for over three decades, brings a sure directorial hand to the material. The show moves with pace and clarity, never losing its younger audience members even as it winks knowingly at the adults in the room. Coenraad Rall's musical direction is crisp and assured, and the score, full of original songs alongside the iconic, crowd-pleasing finale of "I'm a Believer", is delivered with genuine joy. I left the theatre still singing it, and was still going by the time I got home.
Shrek The Musical Jr. is not trying to be high art. It is trying to be a brilliant afternoon in the theatre: funny, warm, surprising, and full of colour. It succeeds. And in doing that, it makes a quietly radical point: that the stories we tell our children about who belongs, who is beautiful, and what it means to be different are not throwaway entertainment. They are the building blocks of how children understand the world and their place in it. A green ogre with a Scottish accent and a talking donkey have no business being this moving, and yet here we are.
Shrek The Musical Jr. runs at Peoples Theatre until 19 April 2026.