As a playwright, Mike van Graan’s strength is his ability to tap into contemporary lingo and topics. His latest play, Mixed Metaphors, addresses the youth in present-day South Africa, incorporating aspects of the performance poetry scene, social activism, the weight of the past and mass media. Van Graan levels punches at the government for its approach to HIV/Aids, crime, violence against women, corruption, quiet diplomacy towards Zimbabwe and the arts.
Director Jaco Bouwer seamlessly employs elements of kwaito, hip-hop, film and technology, such as the Internet and cellphones, into a slick and funky production that captures the essence of this society. It is carefully downplayed, not letting the mockumentary or graphical icons step over the line of pastiche.
The two-hander stars Lindiwe Matshikiza and Chantal Stanfield as two contrasting young women navigating the minefield of post-apartheid South Africa — yes, Van Graan still employs this counterfactual, rather than using ‘democratic”.
Matshikiza plays a performance poet. Her father was a struggle activist and she feels it is her responsibility to continue to promote social consciousness. Stanfield is an arts journalist. Her father was also a struggle activist, but she feels that it is time to enjoy the fruits of the struggle. This debate about the youth ‘remembering the past” vs ‘can’t we just get on with it?” is somewhat hackneyed and it may depend on which side of the fence you are as to whether you enjoy the play or not.
However, while these two represent the archetypes of the debate around social apathy in the youth — akin to Van Graan’s almost allegorical approach to social issues in his previous plays, Green Man Flashing and Hostile Takeover — the characters are allowed to develop as individuals far more in Mixed Metaphors. Matshikiza and Stanfield deliver accomplished performances, bearing their characters in their bodies and their emotions in their faces.
Also different from his previous two plays, Van Graan arrives at a platitude — rather than the meaningful wounds levelled by the previous plays. Van Graan’s ‘mixed metaphor” is not the term it suggests, but a recognition of wildly disparate metaphors all used to describe the same South Africa. While not wanting to give anything away, the final twist may well be seen as a mixed metaphor — something like peas in a paddleboat.
Justifying both women’s outlooks is an informed, measured take on social responsibility — one can’t have everyone feeding the starving, who will generate the economy? Van Graan calls for a more self-conscious awareness and fluidity toward these roles, criticising the extremes of each and asking for allegiance to country, not party.
Nonetheless, Van Graan remains highly derisive about the state of the nation. On sale after the performance is a book of poetry including the poems from the play and others by Van Graan. This and the script are peppered with naked emperors, fools, spin doctors, dogs of war, weapons of mass destruction, renaissance and lions. The strength in this is the work’s accessibility and criticism of the emptiness of media spin. The weakness is that no new life is breathed into these loaded terms when strung together.
That the contemporary may also render art obsolete in later years, Van Graan addresses directly in the play: Who cares, as long as it makes a difference now.
Mixed Metaphors is on at the South African State Theatre until March 25 2006. Tel: (012) 392 4000