Matthew Krouse
review OFTHEWEEK
As a prelude to Sweat on Somerset, upon entering the Barney Simon Theatre in Johannesburg one encounters two makebelieve hookers lounging about in the audience, ready to make small talk with the patrons.
This is an obvious effort to authenticate the upfront experience of steamers when they first step into any common streetcorner escourt agency. The play has been dubbed a docuperformance, after all.
If I’m anything to go by, single men get hit with: “Have you been to a brothel before?” Well, I had for pretty much the same reason as the actress behind the character had: for research purposes. She seemed really surprised when I admitted it though, which was quite surprising to me.
Obviously, not many male theatregoers are prepared to make such an admission.
Where some and we assume many may seem horrified at the mere thought of gauche velvet, low lighting and boredtodeath miniskirts waiting to be banged, the theatre industry seems to have often revelled in its lurid cheapness. And Sweat on Somerset is no exception.
The theatre industry rarely excuses itself for being theatrical. But it always looks for a reason to justify it.
Generally, one gets two types of actresses: those who hate playing whores and those who love it. Roshina Ratnam and Chan Marti fall into the latter category. You can tell because of the way they’ve structured their show. But playing at “happy hookers”, according to the programme notes, has a loftier purpose than just sex for its own sake.
In his programme note, Cory McLeod says: “We hope that by creating a platform upon which their voices can be heard that we may ease the path of discrimination and misunderstanding these women tread daily.”
There it is. McLeod, Ratnam and Marti have decided to speak out on behalf of Cape Town’s 5?000 or so prostitutes. To set the record straight, they maintain that the Mother City’s sex workers are not just a bunch of HIVpositive thieves and crackheads.
And so, no crime, Aids or drugs are mentioned in the show.
I’d say that this is one of its weaknesses. Surely part of the challenge they faced was to make sense of the most difficult and delicate aspects of the prostitutes’ lives?
But some may commend these artists for their discretion, for there are other difficult things wellarticulated by their show. Most of it is embodied in the term “goodwill”.
Sweat on Somerset presents some very positive propaganda on behalf of Cape Town’s hookers. If the research these people have come up with is to be believed then, more than buying drugs, the majority are buying new shoes for their kids and tertiary education for themselves.
I’m a little sceptical, but perhaps this is because I represent your average theatregoer, with fixed preconceptions about prostitutes that I need to get over. If so, then Sweat on Somerset worked for me. However, in my own experience I’ve seen some really hectic people in prostitution and they’re not mentioned in the show.
The people who do come across as weird and wild are the clients. Fat, frightened and freaky, they’re out to get as much as they can from the wisened girls who are hip to every trick in the book.
If you enjoy lighthearted anecdotes about other people’s sex lives then you’ll love Sweat on Somerset. But beware, in an enticingly offbeat manner there is a darker side at play. In the work’s final episode you’ll be quite amazed at what Ratnam and Marti make of the tale of a disturbed housewife whose libido has been damaged by something she saw a servant girl do to her father when she was a child.
Sweat on Somerset runs at the Barney Simon Theatre in the Market Theatre Complex, Newtown Cultural Precinct, Johannesburg, until May 5. Tel: (011) 832?1641