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Fringe 2007 Reviews (36)
Truth in Translation
By Michael Lessac, Music by Hugh Masekele
The Colonnades Theatre Lab/Market Theatre
Assembly Hall
***
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was an unusual concept, as
it offered amnesty to those guilty of horrific crimes, provided that
they confessed to their sins. This curiously Catholic concept is very
different to the trials and executions that have followed similar atrocities
in other times and places.
In this production for The Colonnades Theatre Lab and the Market Theatre,
Johannesburg, Michael Lessac has employed what might be an overly-ambitious
form to look at the workings of the commission and some of the issues
that it sought to address.
Rather than using straight verbatim drama or a fictional recreation
of a trial with flashbacks to the perpetration of crimes, Lessac offers
a mélange using words and music but rarely stopping on any one
story for more than a minute at a time.
The stories are advanced through the medium of interpreters relating
the commission's events in a number of languages. The eight men and
women represent a cross section of South African society and are supplemented
by three actors playing other parts and providing additional colour,
in the dramatic sense.
Through the two hours of the performance, snippets of stories come
out, providing testimonies about deaths and assaults, generally by bodies
under the auspices of the country's Government. Indeed, we see the investigation
of top people such as F.W. de Klerk and Winnie Mandela..
A lighter tone is introduced both by Hugh Masekela's always well-delivered
songs and during the periods when the interpreters take time out to
reveal their own lives and problems and to fight over relatively inconsequential
matters.
The issues addressed in Truth in Translation could not be more
important and the play does make some very important points. There is
though, a danger that at times they will get lost in the impressionistic
presentation.
However, this can be a very moving production and should win prizes
for the large ensemble cast (including musical trio) who work extremely
well together.
Philip Fisher
Blood Confession
By Nick Awde
Confesión de Sangre Productions
Assembly @ Hill Street
***
The spirit of Agatha Christie lives on. Nick Awde's latest play, following
on from Pete and Dud - Come Again that he co-authored in 2005,
is an old-fashioned (in almost every sense) whodunit.
Awde is a canny man who mixes the genre with some tangential commentary
on the topical subject of child abuse by Catholic (in this case Jesuit)
priests.
A couple of unconventional coppers invite a semi-retired priest Father
Michael (Thomas Bewley) to visit a station that, like the Detective
Inspector (Eddie McNamee), is about to be compulsorily retired.
Coincidentally, a colleague, the Irish Father Rory (Martin Ritchie),
is there as well, after his car has been vandalised.
In just under an hour, the audience gets to discover the identity of
a murderer 25 years after he committed his crime. Along the way, they
also get an idea of the horrific consequences of child abuse and the
bizarre results that might arise due to the confidentiality of the Catholic
confessional.
This is a well-constructed short play that doesn't overstay its welcome
but might have been a little better cast.
Philip Fisher
The Next Best Thing
By John Godber
Hull Truck in association with Kingswood College of Arts
C Central
***
John Godber and his Hull Truck Company are still best known for one
of the Fringe's perennial favourites, Bouncers.
This new work has been specifically written to showcase the talents
of the teenagers of his home town. The flyer claims that 23 talented
teens are performing but, on the evening under review, director Nick
Lane had to make do with 21.
The show is held together by a narrator playing an actor and played
by the company's professional actor, Martin Barrass. He introduces a
Brechtian morality play about ambition and the price that it exacts
from those who seek it or have it forced upon them.
The opening is in the kind of rhyming couplets that are usually only
heard during the panto season. The drama then moves into the story of
a 13 year old who is going off the rails. His dad has been there before
and prescribes a new hobby - boxing, which runs in the family.
The little lad progresses from trainee to champ but, like Rocky, he
has to make big sacrifices. Godber then offers parallels with other
youngsters forced, more or less against their will, to become ice skaters,
singers and a wide variety of other sporting and artistic wannabe heroes.
The Brechtian moral that Godber draws is that too much single-minded
dedication to a cause is a bad thing. That is fine as far as it goes,
but he doesn't explore the likely alternative, a life that is a dead
end or will end behind bars.
Barrass does a good job as narrator/MC and the rest of the cast demonstrate
varying degrees of talent as actors and singers. They clearly have a
great deal of fun and are very well trained and rehearsed, thereby offering
an enjoyable hour of light-hearted entertainment with a serious edge.
Philip Fisher
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