‘Dangled’ superb, a must-see
WHEN two theatremakers like Viljoen and van Vuuren join forces in a piece inspired by Gogol, something remarkable is bound to result – and it does. Dangled has its audience dangled in a web of suspense, curiosity and amusement: not for the prudish or fainthearted, as apart from its disconcerting subject-matter it is enlivened by the verbal obscenity and in-your-face scatology that have become Viljoen’s signature, while van Vuuren’s performance goes beyond uninhibited. That said, it is an hour’s worth of brilliant theatre and vastly entertaining.
Rocco Poole’s design is understated to the point of blandness, like the neutral costume sported by van Vuuren, in powerful contrast with the florid script and unnerving action. Since the eponymous madman interacts with his furniture and window as if they were animate beings, these basic elements of the set are invested with a life of their own: the table is truculent and uncooperative, the chair is demure, and the window interesting. All are addressed as if their respective personalities were on a par with those of the protagonists in the plot.
The latter is simple, but terrifying: a solitary man develops an obsession with an attractive girl who he passes in the street, and he lives out some quirky fantasies in her regard (here van Vuuren outdoes himself). One day she appears with a dog, which incurs her admirer’s intense loathing, then circumstances bring the two together. All one can say is that it does not have a fairytale ending …
Delivery of the plot is swift to the point of ruthlessness after a leisurely preface mainly concerned with furniture abuse, but what makes Dangled particularly arresting is the sheer versatility of van Vuuren, who can ring the changes from wistful tenderness to horrific brutality and make both extremes equally convincing; moreover, his physicality is masterly.
Even when writing in his diary, the madman conveys a sense of repressed violence which haunts the entire work. Paradoxically however, its structure has a classical symmetry, since it starts and ends with diary entries, like parentheses enclosing an episode of stygian horror. Wow.