A brutal mirror image to left-liberal hypocrisy
Ifound the opening night of Nadia Davids’ new play, Hold Still, a thrilling but chastening experience. Part of the thrill was the premiere buzz: the pleasure of seeing old friends and making new acquaintances, the clink of glasses, snippets of news and gossip. The real thrill, however, came when the Baxter Theatre’s Flipside auditorium hushed and the lights went down.
I am awed by artists exercising talents that are far beyond my range — painters, sculptors, musicians, dancers and actors pursuing feats of creation. I may understand the techniques by which these feats are achieved, but the achievement itself remains incomprehensible and pleasingly mysterious.
One sphere where I consider myself creatively capable, however, is the art of putting words together. And it was as a writer, that I was humbled. I sat thinking: there is no way that I could have written this. Davids’ script is dramatically taut but carves a space for lyricism, with sharp exchanges of dialogue offset by poetic monologues. It is also, by turns, poignant and politically astute; it tackles current affairs head-on without pontificating or compromising the audience’s immersion in the world of the play.
Hold Still (directed by Jay Pather) is very much a response to the present global zeitgeist. It is also about the past. Buried underneath the dilemmas faced individually and collectively by the characters is the question, “How did we get here?”
Rosa and Ben Feigel are a middle-class, middle-aged, North London couple. Rosa (Mwenya Kabwe) is black and Ben (Andrew Buckland) is Jewish. Both are the children of immigrants: Rosa’s parents were anti-apartheid activists who had to flee SA, while Ben’s father escaped the Nazis and was brought to Britain as an orphan — his entire family killed in the Holocaust. Exile and immigration are woven into their family lore through stories that sublimate intergenerational trauma by affirming justice, equality and kindness.
These principles are put to the test when their son Oliver (Lyle October) decides to help “undocumented” and soon-tobe “illegal” migrant Imran (Tailyn Ramsamy) by hiding him in the family home. Imran has been a charity project of sorts for the Feigels, who have helped him with schoolwork and finances and more. Despite their anger at a UK government pandering to xenophobia, racism and populist nationalism — endorsing these through legislation — Rosa and Ben are also fearful. They don’t want the “safe” life they have created for themselves and for Oliver to be placed at risk.
Many audience members will see in this a mirror image of their own hypocrisy, however left- or liberal-leaning they may be. I will admit that I overidentify with Buckland’s Ben, who writes newspaper articles critiquing systemic oppression, who recognises (but often forgets) his white male privilege, who begrudgingly admits that his Marxist fervour has receded along with his hairline. The similarities even extend to his wife pointing out that she doesn’t have to read his weekly columns because she lives with him and knows his opinions.
Nevertheless, beyond similarities or differences in terms of race, gender, class, religion and nationality, there is a universal tussle at the heart of Hold Still: the relationship between parent and child. It may be marked by love or resentment or absence — or all of these — but it will always, inevitably, contain conflict.
As children, we valorise our parents, we are disappointed by them, we rebel against them, we make amends, we seek our own paths, we acknowledge how much we are like them. As parents, we cosset and comfort our children, we chastise them, we hold them close, we expect their loyalty and gratitude, we teach them, we project onto them, we lie to them.
In Hold Still, Ben and Rose discover that their decision to withhold from Oliver certain truths — as their parents had done — may have been wellintentioned but was also based on their own reluctance to face the brutality of the past. Yet Oliver (as in Tambo), with both youth and truth on his side, insists that they join him in confronting the brutality of the present.
● ‘Hold Still’ is at the Baxter Flipside until 19 November.