Andrew Buckland has developed an interest in arachnids, those creatures with long segmented tails ending in a venomous sting. His original play The Scorpion, performed by UBOM! Eastern Cape Theatre Company opens on June 30 and runs until July 9 at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.
“It’s not an original idea or story” says Buckland, “but the message of it is absolutely pertinent to the situation here [in South Africa]”. The plot is loosely based on The Government Inspector by the Russian writer, Gogol.
Like Gogol’s original, The Scorpion is about the comedy of corruption. Buckland has, with his characteristic comic flair, taken a real situation and inflated it with what he calls “a satirical eye” to the point when it becomes comical.
“At the same time,” Buckland adds, “comedy is a two-edged sword, and the consequences of comic idiocy may be tragic, and extremely serious”.
Buckland describes the structure of The Scorpion as “kind of grotesque and slightly farcical”. As the director, the challenge for Buckland was to take this heightened form and, in a purely technical way, get the comic rhythms of the play to work.
“It’s like a musical score” explains Buckland, “and the challenge is getting the ensemble work of the actors to work like an orchestra, to build to the climax so that when there’s a release of tension, the laugh works”.
“I’m always drawn to comedy because when people laugh, you can access them in a particular way — that nervous reaction makes them open, receptive to ideas,” says Buckland. He believes that is why plays such as The Scorpion work so well; “You go to theatre to be entertained with things that are meaningful to you, but not necessarily in a very serious or intellectual way”.
Buckland crafts the toys of theatre into something that serves the material and, in The Scorpion, comedy and politics fuse in a play that is entertainment with a sting in the tail.
Andrew Buckland also acts in Makana and directs Hero at the 2005 National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, which runs from June 30 to July 9