Life’s roller-coaster ride to find one’s significant other
DIRECTOR: Greg Karvellas CAST: Gabriel Meltz, Dominique Mahler, Lesoko Seabe, Lucy Tops, Michele Maxwell, Roberto Kyle and Ryan de Villiers VENUE: Fugard Theatre, until July 7 RATING: ★★★★✩
ONLY a dramatist as insightful and witty as Joshua Harmon could take material worthy of a TV soap opera
(The quest to find Mr Right) and tease it out into a play lasting over two hours without descending into banality or over-extending audience indulgence.
In addition to tracing the amorous adventures of 20-something young adults, he satirises the culture, mores and aspirations of New Yorkers who have reached the age where it’s no longer cool to be single.
Harmon’s script has a flavour which hovers between tart and sweet, a gift for the talented cast of seven appearing in this comedy and headed by Meltz as Jordan, a sensitive gay man who, like his female friends, is desperate to end his solitude through a meaningful relationship.
The emotional roller-coaster has him on stage more or less almost continuously, and Meltz’s stamina is up to the challenge. His sterling portrayal is matched by those of Mahler, Tops and Seabe as the three girls who are his fellow-seekers after Mr Right.
Tops again shows her mettle in comic roles, her strength being conveying much without a word; Seabe is delectable as Vanessa, the grotesquely-arrayed bride, and Mahler – strident, volatile and larger than life, is convincing as the loud-mouthed Kiki.
Maxwell shines in a mature role (this time, as the geriatric grandmother to whom Jordan frequently turns when in emotional need); Kyle and De Villiers are versatile playing various personae, their lightly-camouflaged changes of identity leaving the audience in no doubt as to who they are in vastly different impersonations – and the septet are kept nicely in step by Karvellas’s astute direction.
The generation gap between Jordan’s grandmother and the rest is visually apparent in the inspired set devised by Wolf Britz, a contrast between edgy metallic minimalism and the cosy clutter of the old lady’s apartment several levels up.
From nerve-jangling opening to final, Significant has what it takes.