A Good House

Amy Jephta
Royal Court Theatre and Bristol Old Vic in association with The Market Theatre
Royal Court Theatre, London

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Bonolo (Mimî M Khayisa) and Sihle (Sifiso Mazibuko) Credit: Camilla Greenwell
Andrew (Kai Luke Brummer) and Jess (Robyn Rainsford) Credit: Camilla Greenwell
Andrew (Kai Luke Brummer), Chris (Scott Sparrow), Lynette (Olivia Darnley) Bonolo (Mimî M Khayisa), Sihle (Sifiso Mazibuko) and Jess (Robyn Rainsford) Credit: Camilla Greenwell

Amy Jephta’s lightly satirical play depicts the insecure aspirations of six characters in a wealthy community where white new arrivals Jess (Robyn Rainsford) and Andrew (Kai Luke Brummer) paid some three and a half million rand for their new home, only to find a small wooden and metal shack suddenly spring up outside.

Several white neighbours decide to get rid of it. None of them or the audience ever see the people who put it up, but there is a worry among a number of the white members of the community that it might be black people, so white Chris (Scott Sparrow) and Lynette (Olivia Darnley) decide it’s a good time to pay their first visit to the rather upmarket home of black neighbours Sihle (Sifiso Mazibuko) and Bonolo (Mimî M Khayisa). Maybe, while they sip the wine, the subject of the inconvenient shack will crop up and the black couple will agree to front an eviction notice.

This is modern post-apartheid South Africa where communities are no longer legally segregated, so black people can live side by side with white people. Gone are the days when black people were robbed of their land and homes, forcing them into informal housing.

Much of that informal housing still exists, even in wealthier areas. South African statistics for 2014 noted that “over two million children live in backyard dwellings or shacks in informal settlements.”

The play focuses on the impact of this on Bonolo, who has relatives living in such places but has always kept herself carefully free of these connections, and Sihle, who has worked his way up from such circumstances to become a partner in a securities firm.

The show opens with them hosting Chris and Lynette, with Bonolo taking a long time to parade her wine aerator and special cheese knife. The initial absurdity of their vacuous social politeness becomes mildly fractious as the issue of the shack is raised. The black couple suspects their skin colour is the only reason for the visit, and Bonolo makes a point of mentioning the similar living conditions of her relatives.

In a later scene, Bonolo and Sihle, out jogging, pay an unannounced first visit to Jess and Andrew only to be mistaken by the twitchy Andrew, because they are black, to be the invisible inhabitants of the shack.

The white characters are very slightly depicted with their behaviour illustrating their clumsy, racialised prejudices and very broadly their scramble to demonstrate their social status, something which Sihle tells them is just a performance.

Occasionally, the lights dim and, as the white characters freeze, we hear a private conversation between the black couple. Bonolo, who has criticised the proposals of the white neighbours, tells Sihle, who has been more reserved about the prejudices they express, that he prefers “to be inoffensively invisible. Don’t mind the shadow in the corner… You think you can outrun their prejudice by taking their side? You can’t bear being mistaken for what you actually are. A black man.”

Arguing that Bonolo’s position is flawed, Sihle says, “you can’t be an activist on the side of ‘take back the land’ and have a fence protecting your good life and your house and your stuff. You’re not free, you live in a world of walls, that’s the world you’ve chosen. You’re not a revolutionary, you’re a capitalist.”

The important issues the play raises, dramatically and occasionally amusingly, in this well-acted performance about social status and racism in an unequal society reflect particularly the current situation in South Africa, but also have relevance to wherever money grabbing neoliberals have shaped a world of cruelty around themselves.

Reviewer: Keith Mckenna

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