DARK NOON

Seldom is theatre as disquieting as this remarkable work from South Africa, a work that from the very start is totally captivating. An empty platform is populated by a troupe of actors who immediately adopt white face, slapping powder in clouds of defiance and bottle blonde wigs that become a core statement for the whole. It is simultaneously hilarious and sinister.

And that balance of comedy through physicality and the darkness of the story they are telling is the heart of the whole. Relating the story of how the west was won, settlers against an indigenous people, is of course a parallel to the plight of the African nation at the hands of the acquisitive northern Europeans who invaded, killed and colonised. It could so easily have been written as just that, but it becomes so much more poignant to set it in America, that step away from the companies home truth making it sharper and more disturbing.

The unsettling quality is balanced by the bleak humour, the casual killings, oppression, greed and sense of entitlement displayed as the settlers move across the great landscape of the continent. White supremacy, slavery played out with razor sharp with by a remarkable company taking on a vast panoply of roles, victims and aggressors alike. Each chapter is narrated by a different voice and as the story unfolds the platform is occupied, the frames of buildings emerge, shacks, bars, brothels, churches, shops, banks and prisons, and through the centre the railroad.

Members of the audience are corralled into taking part, willing in part but symbols of oppression and exploitation too.

This is spectacular theatre, the like of which I have never seen before. At times it is entertainingly witty but never far behind comes its dark truth, each potential gag coming with a slap around the face. It is strangely beautiful to look at and horrifically bleak too. I sat in silence as I watched, I didn’t laugh, I was distressed and moved as the realisation that this was a story of imperialism, colonisation and genocide and not really one of America and “cowboys and Indians”. This was a universal statement about war, about invasion, about the vile nature of humanity, yes set in the emerging USA, but equally and most importantly about Britain in Africa, India, Australia… the list almost endless. About Russia and Ukraine, about America and Israel in Palestine and Iran.

The production is so well crafted, so well played and so very important – and in the final passage the cast tell their own stories of how Hollywood’s portrayal of how the west was won sanitised the horror of guns and made normal killing. This maybe the most important piece of modern theatre for many years, a moral lesson delivered with intense impact.

Andrew Kay

21 May

Corn Exchange

Rating:

CAST

Mandla Gaduka

Kaygee Letsholonyana

Lillian Malulyck

Bongani Bennedict Masango

Siyambonga Alfred Mdubeki

Joe Young

Thulani Zwane

fix+foxy PRODUCTION CREW

Producer & Company Manager- Annette Max Hansen

Production Managers – Ulrich Ruchlinski, Thomas Dotzler & Jonathan Hjorth

Stage Manager – Svante Huniche Corell

Sound Manager & Operator – Theo Hector

Assistant Director – Katinka Hurvig Møller

Costume Manager – Sofie Bonde Lenau

fix+foxy CREATIVE TEAM

Director and Scriptwriter – Tue Biering

Choreographer and co-director – Nhlanhla Mahlangu

Set Designer – Johan Kølkjær

Sound Designer – Ditlev Brinth

Lighting Designer – Christoffer Gulløv

Props Designer – Marie Rosendahl Chemnitz

Costume Designer – Camilla Lind

Video Designer – Rasmus Kreiner