Matthew Krouse
theatre
Moments of tedium caused by a slightly overladen script barely detract from the wholesale intrigue of The Great Outdoors. In his most recent play, first performed at the National Arts Festival last year, Neil McCarthy treats the day-to-day issues of white South Africa with playful disdain. Like the people it depicts, The Great Outdoors may be a little straight-laced, but it’s proof that conventional theatre still has something to say. In this department the play, directed by Barbara Rubin, goes beyond post-apartheid, arriving post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
So it begins with a monologue by Isidingo heavyweight Jamie Bartlett about truth a general ramble that hardly sets the tone or the pace.
But what follows is a four-way entanglement between individuals trying to discover, in a country turning black, how best to sustain the great white, suburban dream. As we know, this is done by constantly making use of the powerful networks established in the dark past like old boys’ clubs.
And so, in the wake of the death of a black man, an up-to-the-minute car dealer and his prissy wife, played by McCarthy and Leila Henriques, get mixed up with a high-ranking cop and his cheap girlfriend, played by Bartlett and Debbie Brown. In negotiating the disaster it is the better class that learns to rely on those who have, historically, been way below. But that’s the thing about the laager somehow it continues to function, though one has to mix with the most awful types. Ultimately, the sacrifices made in order to sustain the laager are great. In trying to avoid confrontation with what is, for conservative whites, an unfathomable black mass, lies may have to be told and official strings may have to be pulled. But what the hell, if that’s what it takes to get off the hook … And here McCarthy hammers home a basic truth: even the most liberal whites believe that since there are black South Africans who get away with crime the same should happen when any white person breaks the law.
Ironically, though, it is the crooked cop who ultimately has insight into what’s going on in the black community nearby. He sees more than well-meaning employers who promote their black underlings so that they can look good at the corporate launch. One wonders how much of this will be news to the audience of The Great Outdoors. It’s doubtful whether any of it will actually resonate with the “new conservatives” many of whom mill about the fantasy land of Sandton Square.
The Great Outdoors is showing at the Agfa Theatre on the Square, Sandton Square, until May 19. Tel: (011) 883?8606