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September 17, 2005
The Island Cambridge Arts Theatre
What's this? Two reviews in the space of 24 hours?
Steady yourself. When I had a lot of work on, Purple Elephant’s Corner descended into the gratuitous realm of genitalia, cash machines, children's TV and high swear-word counts. For the time being, at least while I deal with a backlog of blog fodder I am about to go all high-brow and serious on you. I’ll try not to disappear up my own arse (dammit there I go again) by pretending I do this sort of thing all the time. I don’t and others do it better but I’ve been to the theatre to see The Island and if you do nothing else with your life I want you to go too. (Follow this link for an extensive list of future dates)
The older and more cynical I get, the less likely I am to be blown away by anything, be it music, literature, theatre whatever (cue a teenage Purple Elephant staggering out of her
GCSE English Literature class having just reached the end of An Inspector Calls) but Thursday night I made it home on the bus, fell in through the door and when Mr PE nonchalantly asked how the play was, I pressed a ticket for the following night in his hand and breathlessly muttered, “Go!”
The Island was created by Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona in the early seventies, right in the middle of apartheid South Africa. The story is of two political prisoners Winston and John (Mpho Molepo and Thami Mngqolo) incarcerated on the notorious Robben Island prison as they rehearse and then perform a two man production of Sophocles' Antigone.
In this Live Theatre and UK Arts Production the set and props are as minimalist as can be expected (watch how the two cups crop up in a whole array of amusing and poignant situations) which means that the emphasis is on the energy as Winston and John bounce off one another in the performance. I really do not want to give too much away as part of the appeal was that I went along barely knowing what to expect but I feel the need to mention John’s imaginary phone call, I’m not gushing when I say it was one of the most astounding scenes I’ve seen on stage in a long time. In the space of about two minutes the audience went from holding their sides with laughter to a stunned gutted silence. Yep it even stifled the group of teenage lads behind me who muttered to each other all the way through the performance, bringing themselves to giggle like Beavis and Butthead only when the actors used the words ‘titties’ or ‘pussy’ but to them nothing was quite so funny as when their mate’s mobile phone went off (why do these people bother buying a ticket and why do they always find me?)
The play is only an hour and fifteen minutes long and they performed it straight off without an interval, the right decision as a break would have killed the momentum. On Thursday night we were treated to the theatre equivalent of a late night lock-in where Mpho and Thami came out to answer the audience’s questions. This was informative as we learned a little more of their background in radical South African theatre, the Market in particular.
So in case you missed them above, here are the dates.Go!
Posted by purple elephant at September 17, 2005 10:15 AM