THEATRE: Hazel Friedman
IF there’s one conclusion to be drawn from On My Birthday, Aubrey Sekhabi’s play about domestic violence, it is this: while noble causes and educational initiatives may go together like a horse and carriage, they can also make for pretty dodgy theatre.
All too often, the well-intentioned playwright-cum- sociologist reduces life’s twists and turns — the stuff that makes for convincing theatre — into a single-lane highway leading to a predictable destination. Which is fine if you’re into theatre as didactic sermon, morality play or Aesopian fable. But deeply irritating if you aren’t.
Yet, On My Birthday, a production by the recently established North West Arts Council, oozes with potential. And Sekhabi — one of the talented young guns from Wits University’s school of dramatic arts — is a playwright and director of undisputed talent.
With remarkable realism and an eye for domestic detail, he taps into the stresses of trying to attain middle-class aspirations amid depressing realities. In the case of Lebo (Mmabatho Mogomotsi) and Richard (Meshack Xaba), the banalities of mismatching linoleum floors, a shortage of kitchen knives and a fridge filled with booze but bereft of food are counterbalanced against their quest for a better future. The fact that their tragedy unfolds in the context of Soshanguve township makes it no less poignant and universal.
But social realism — as depicted so horrifyingly in the fight scene — is soon replaced by facile social judgment. Progressively, On My Birthday takes on the trappings of a D-grade soap opera whose message is slammed home with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. That Sekhabi happens to be a man writing about woman abuse is not the problem. Some of the most brilliant expositions on the subject were not dependent on female authorship for their resonance.
But a woman’s experience of domestic abuse is a complex one, as is her inadvertent complicity in its perpetuation. Admittedly, Sekhabi tries hard not to repeat gender stereotypes by presenting Lebo’s father as the heroic counter-image to the violent, adulterous husband; and Thoko as Lebo’s fickle friend.
But he fails to transcend the lowest common denominator of his subject, relying too heavily on the “worthiness” of the theme for its theatrical validation. And even astounding performances — particularly by Mogomotsi — cannot prevent the play from drowning in simplistic sentiment.
The final scene — the birthday “bash” — is the most embarrassing type of melodrama. And by the time the song He’s Out of My Life is played to the sight of a sobbing wife and hacked-up husband, the audience also goes to pieces — not from collective catharsis, but from uncontained mirth.
On My Birthday is at The Laager at the Market Theatre until August 24