THEATRE: David Le Page
CUBA and His Teddy Bear: it sounds like a children’s=20 play, and by and large it is likely to be adolescents=20 who will most enjoy this frank work about the=20 relationship between a father, Cuba, his son, Teddy,=20 and drugs — a rather unique menage a trois, in which=20 the imperfection of fathers is extended into=20 criminality, and in which their love for each other=20 ultimately triumphs over the third party.
This central set of relationships is orbited by others.=20 Jackie, a rather pathetic Jewish criminal, makes for a=20 weird but unrelated grandfather figure. Che is a junkie=20 who has won a Tony Award, and who has inspired Teddy’s=20 dreams of being a writer. Redlights is a hip, flashy=20 friend of the family who, with Lourdes, brings the=20 spirit of the barrio into Cuba’s squalid apartment.
Clare Stopford has done a remarkable job of creating=20 something of the Spanish-American spirit on a South=20 African stage; those of us who know this milieu only=20 from tacky American movies and TV are easily taken in.=20 The Spanish-American accent (“Cooba”) seems easier for=20 South African actors to master than a more conventional=20 American accent, and for once we are not distracted by=20 their inflective struggles.
A tantalising component of the play is Santeria, the=20 Afro-Caribbean religion born of a bizarre marriage of=20 Yoruba animism and Catholicism. An elaborate altar,=20 hung about with beads and topped with a black madonna,=20 stands to one side of the action, and Cuba’s=20 misfortunes are explained in the play as the result of=20 his failure to keep his promise to La Caridad del Cobre=20 — the Lady of the Cove. Whether Reinaldo Povod, the=20 play’s writer, intends us to take Santeria seriously is=20 not clear, but in Stopford’s production it does little=20 more than add some texture and colour.
Danny Keogh’s Cuba is hung about with imminent violence=20 that never quite seems to be realised, which is the=20 cleverness of his performance. While we always expect=20 Cuba to erupt in rage, when he does so, shoving his son=20 about the kitchen, or pulling a gun on a drug dealer,=20 it is somehow disappointing.=20
Keogh is showing up the essentially pathetic qualities=20 of this rather inadequate criminal, who is struggling=20 to make a living even as a drug dealer, and believes=20 his son would do good to become a “Fed”. If Stopford=20 has seriously aimed at Keogh achieving what her=20 director’s note calls “a terrifying pattern of=20 machismo”, then she has failed; if she is content with=20 a more vulnerable Cuba, her achievement is solid.
Adrian Alper would profit by finding more terror in his=20 relationship with Cuba; he does not make a satisfying=20 Teddy, but it is difficult to imagine who would. Povod=20 wrote his script imagining Robert de Niro as Cuba, but=20 perhaps his vision was not as clear with his other=20 characters, especially Jackie, a feeble persona played=20 feebly by Len Sparrowhawk.
Those of whom we see less are more satisfying,=20 especially Toni Caprari, whose Che is terrifyingly=20 degraded, and whose scenes with Alper are deeply=20 sinister. Sophia Condaris’ Lourdes and David Germond’s=20 Redlight might have just walked off a Havana street.
Povod’s construction uses rather limited materials,=20 people who are, as Stopford points out, struggling with=20 inadequacy, limited “life skills” and cultural=20 displacement. His most powerful moments deal with the=20 terror of drugs, and much as these scenes make for an=20 awful, slow plummet of spirit in the observer, one=20 wonders if such reactions aren’t to the problems=20 described by the drama, rather than the drama itself.
Cuba and His Teddy Bear is a brave production, which is=20 likely to be deeply resonant for those struggling with=20 adolescence, drugs, fathers or sons.
Cuba and His Teddy Bear runs at the Youth Theatre at=20 the Johannesburg Civic until August 19
