‘Oleanna’ on at the Fugard Theatre
The resonances are obvious in the wake of the #MeToo movement and battle for equality, writes Robyn Cohen
NEW VOICES
Artscape’s New Voices Programme is presenting four new pieces in the Artscape Arena from October 2-27.
The season starts off with Nicola Moerman’s directed by Rafiek Mammon (October 2-6), which grapples with the pressures of an individual in everyday life.
In written by Zinobulali Goduka and directed by Fatima Dike (October 8-13), a student is shot dead during the student protests.
(October 15-20), written by Herschelle Benjamin and directed by Sandra Temmingh, centres around a single mom in Mitchells Plain and her battles with “matriarchal love, struggles and strife”. Pocus, The Third Force, Further Questions, Klong is my Dood The Widow
MONDAY NIGHT MAGIC
Korreltjie Kop
(October 22-27) – an adaptation of Dr Nomfundo Mali’s support group reports – a series of monologues, investigate how widows cope after the loss of their husbands and loved ones. Direction is by Siphokazi Jonas.
Tickets are R60 at Computicket. However, should you want to see all four New Voices productions, there is a season ticket for entry to all four productions.
Buy at Computicket.
The Cape Town Magic Club kicks off its almost-summer season, on October 1, at its new location – the Opera Bar – in the newly-renovated Artscape Theatre Centre on Cape Town’s Foreshore.
The season runs every Monday night and wraps up on November 26. Two slots and age restrictions apply as it can get risqué at these fun evenings – with loads of audience participation.
No under 13s for the 7pm shows, no under 18s for the 9pm shows. Tickets: R200 Golden Circle, R170 General Admission. Block booking available. Performer line-up: www.magic.capetown/ the-shows/
The producer of the Monday Night Magic, Marcel Oudejans, is hosting a number of other magic events. For instance, award-winning mentalist and magician Brendon Peel is performing his acclaimed one-man show,
in three venues, this month and in October. He is on at The Raptor Room (Roeland Street, Sept 27) and The Drama Factory (Strand, Oct 3 and 4).
Info for Monday Night Magic and other events at www.magic.capetown Hocus
THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME
After being closed for five months while undergoing renovations, Pieter Toerien’s Theatre on the Bay in Camps Bay, is back on the boards with the award-winning hit play – running until November 3. Tickets R140-R240.
Bookings at Computicket or the theatre box offices. DAVID Mamet’s Oleanna was written and first performed in 1992 in the US. Over two decades later and the play resonates profoundly... a howl and a scream against our own socio-politicalpersonal landscape. It’s as if Mamet wrote the play for us in Africa.
The drama unfurls as Carol (Nicole Fortuin) steps into the office-boudoir of her college professor, John (Alan Committie). The professor is vying for tenure and to close on a house.
He is intent on pleasing his wife who is not physically present but is like a third protagonist as she constantly interrupts with her calls on his office phone. This chirping of the phone is totally inappropriate in a student-adviser situation. Yet the professor is cool with that. He is a showman strutting in front of his student – taunting her with his warm fuzzy life, away from the campus.
Carol is resolute in her determination to get an education. The professor represents power, privilege and patriarchy. She subsequently accuses him of making sexually inappropriate remarks and transgressing her personal and physical space. He protests that he means “well” and has her best interests at heart. I don’t want to plot spoil how the narrative progresses within the closeted chamber of his work space. However, as it has been pointed out by many, Mamet’s sympathy veers towards the professor. Ag, shame, here is this “good” man who is being manipulated by this young woman who wants a fall guy – someone to pay penance for what she has encountered in her life. He meant well and look what has occurred with this woman misconstruing – as he sees it – what he has said and how he has behaved towards her.
I heard people, talking, after the show, sympathising with the professor as a “victim”. In the play, Carol chirps the prof that he sees her as someone who is “frightened, repressed and who wants revenge” but she is not succumbing easily to that rejoinder – no matter the ruptures in her background.
In a recent interview, Fortuin reflected that she was perturbed with Mamet’s allegiance with the professor and his rebuttal that he had unwittingly behaved inappropriately. However, therein lies the punch and sting. I haven’t seen other productions of this play but in my viewing, Committie’s cuddly, portly professor image unravels into a brutish-thuggish figure. To me, Carol comes across vividly as a person who has been whittled down by a man of power, privilege and class. Committie and Fortuin deliver brilliant performances – nuanced, laced with anguish and passion. They rip into predator-victim stereotypes. Above all, the play sounds out as a cautionary tale: individuals in positions of power should be hyper vigilant in the way that they deal with those that they encounter. It’s not a defence to say that you were provoked or egged on. In our post-democratic society, in a fractured post-liberation society where power and privilege rest precariously on shaky ground, that message is one that needs to be heard loud and clear.
The resonances are obvious in the wake of the #MeToo movement and closer to home, the fall-out in the gilded halls of academia with the battle for equality – socially, demographically and every which way. The Fugard Theatre’s production of Oleanna is must-see production with charged performances by Fortuin and Committie. One staggers out of the theatre, reeling from this harrowing play.
Oleanna is on at the Fugard Studio Theatre, until October 20. Tickets from R150. Book through the Fugard Theatre box office on 021 461 4554 or online at www.thefugard.com