Premiered at the National Arts Festival 2011
Director: Brink Scholtz
Featuring: Richard Antrobus & Rocky
What the Critics had to Say:
"A man struggling to find courage and strength in an unfair world discovers his muse in an unexpected place. Whether to abuse or be abused, may be the question. This is a powerful but disturbing performance, which evokes a strong emotional response – no comfortable endings here!" (Cue, LG 2011)
Reviewed by Jane Stone
Stylistically edgy, risk-taking physical theatre this collaboratively conceptualised piece from Brink Scholtz and Levern Botha is acted with complete and compelling commitment by Richard Antrobus, Matt Jackson, Noluvuyo Schwempe and Nicola Elliot.
Antrobus plays mechanic/Adam/actor with an angel of assistance, Schwempe, and the oft sinister theatrical manipulators Jackson and Elliot, in a piece that disturbs and has its audience engaged and seduced. (Although people have walked out! If you want a conventionally shaped story, this is not it! Scholtz’s work is expressive, but she is not afraid to go to theatrically uncomfortable places, in a way that leaves people unsure as to how to react.)
Scholtz says the play is thematically about cycles of abuse in relationships, but no simple analysis is presented here: the violence becomes a release, something that “lets you see stars”The starting point for the theatre-devisers was their trying to engage with the question: who or what is the devil?Another source in the exploration of the devil is ‘the obscene kiss’… if you kiss the devil, he marks you – marks on the body. So, Scholtz says, a starting point for them was the way in which the body is marked – how shame and sin are written on the body.Using aspects of meta-theatre, the performance also explores the voyeurism of the audience and the exhibitionism of the performer.You will either walk out or become a cult follower!
National Arts Festival Blog
National Arts Festival
Dates: Thursday, 28th June 2012 - Sunday, 8th July 2012
