THE PLAYGROUND. To 30 October.
London
THE PLAYGROUND
by Beverley Naidoo
Polka Theatre To 30 October 2004
Tue-Sat variously 10.30am,11am,2pm,2.30pm &5.30pm
Runs 2hr 5min One interval
TICKETS: 020 8543 4888
www.polkatheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 19 October
On the right side, rather than on the right lines.Beverley Naidoo's new play for 9+ supposedly celebrates a decade of post-apartheid South Africa. As a celebration it rather strangely ends with a sunset rather than a sunrise. More damagingly it focuses overmuch on negative images of white Afrikaners.
While apartheid's horrors should be neither diminished nor forgotten, time has moved on and there are new problems, as well as progress to celebrate. One scene watching a white boy grow apart from his black childhood friend, hearing a ranting racist or seeing a female ornament of affluent white womanhood paste a smile onto distaste for fellow humans, the same things over again don't move anyone forward, politically or dramatically. Bullying of sweet Rosa, bright first girl to join a former whites-only school post-apartheid, adds to the negativity.
Which pushes the characters towards stereotypes. The virtues of Rosa and her mother, a servant ambitious for her daughter, are real enough, but repeatedly set against Mr and Mrs van den Nasty and their type they become all too cardboard in texture.
The long, meandering first act does so much scene-setting there's little room for the story of Rosa's progress in act two. Some points are well made, such as the headteacher's discouragement of Rosa and her mother while staying within the law on free access. But (without trying to be as discouraging) novelists turning to the theatre too often turn out too explicit, ignoring the actors' contribution to characterisation. And that's happened here.
It constricts the actors, meaning, for example, that Frances Simon and Doreen Webster have only a few moments to let their characters breathe among the assault-course of words. And Alistair Moulton Black's Hennie can only illustrate the spelled-out aspects of a young man conditioned by a macho-minded father, rather than create the character from within.
No wonder the silent opening, as Rosa peers through the prohibitive mesh of the playground fence, is the most powerful moment. There's fine singing too, but overall the procession of brief scenes, and focus on the past, crowd out the central optimistic image, of the playground as meeting place for all the next generation.
Hennie: Alistair Moulton Black
Rosa: Frances Simon
Trigger Boy Jannie: Cesar Ribeiro
Mevrou van Niekerk: Jennifer Woodburne
Mama: Doreen Webster
Meneer van Niekerk; David Anthony
Selo: Thabo Twetwa
Director: Olusola Oyeleye
Designer: Phil Newman
Lighting: Colin Green for Green Salmon Lighting
Sound: Simon McCorry
Music Director/Dialect coach: Prudence Mampe
Movement: David Broughton Davies
2004-10-22 02:41:42