Suzy Bell : On show in Durban
A slack-jawed, stocking-headed, beaut of a character in blue checked night-gown, Marilyn Monroe pom-pom slippers, fag in mouth, and eye firmly on the box of Premier Grand-Cru, steals the show in this thrice Vita Award-nominated play, A Coloured Place.
The character is Evette. Lonely but funny and fiercely independent, she celebrates New Year on her own, slagging her in-laws, punctuating her sentences with Zulu, and spiking her dialogue with colloquial expressions like: “It’s no skin off my face!”
It’s very much the territory of bright young playwright Lueen Conning, who is gatvol of stereotypes of coloured people being thought of as: “descendants of a line of toothless fishermen and flower sellers and gangsters”. Instead of letting it fester, she’s used that energy to write a universally powerful play about the liberation that comes with facing your fears, and the power of the human spirit.
The unimaginable optimism but sadness of Evette is truly unforgettable, as played by slick young actress Crystal Tryon.
People everywhere crave some sense of identity, whether one of national unity, within a religion or within an identifiable sub-culture. A Coloured Place is essentially about dislocated people seeking their roots and Conning makes it very clear that of all the races in this country, the coloured people have had to deal with the most uphill.
“To the majority of people, coloured people are just invisible,” is a sentiment that echoes throughout this blistering hot script, and again it hits hard with: “Before we didn’t get jobs because we were not white enough, and now we don’t get jobs because we aren’t black enough.” The harsh fact is there are no museums, no libraries that tell the history of coloured people. Conning’s play is a damned good start.
“Some people have no idea what it felt like going to the library to do research for my play and coming across bare scraps of information on our people,” says Conning, who is the first to admit she comes from a middle-class background and went to a good school. But; “I lived on the doorsteps of people talking a different way. For example, saying `She’s having her wardrobe taken out’ means she’s having a hysterectomy. Sometimes the word gearbox is used instead of wardrobe. It’s expressions like these, for me as a playwright, that really sparkle with wit and such life.”
The soundtrack that Conning uses reflects exactly this. The slow, druggy lyrics of local Newlands East band, TRO (The Real Ones – who are now blazing ahead with record-label interest in Johannesburg), are affirming of coloured culture in that they celebrate “bruin funk” and don’t pander to what Conning refers to as that “homey- nigger shit”.
The lyrics talk about “picking up the bruin funk” and “I checked main-man clutch, he was sipping on iJuba . throw your old Kaapies in the air .”
Conning’s play is such a success because it provokes rumbling laughter. There are tragic moments, but the humorous thread of this stark play draws out in us that nervous laughter that, I guess, does us some good.
It’s a comforting kind of laughter in that is makes us acknowledge the madness in all of us.
What I want to know, however, is where all the “wit ous” were on the night I went to check out this brilliant show? This is its third season in Durban due to popular demand. Well worth checking out.
A Coloured Place is on at The Playhouse Loft until August 9. Times: Tuesday – Friday at 7pm, Saturday at 6pm and 9pm and on Sunday at 3pm and 6pm.