After watching The Butcher Brothers, directed by Sylvaine Strike (with assistance from Daniel Buckland), a friend I was with remarked that she didn’t like the servile way the black servant of the white ballroom dancer-turned-butcher cleaned up after his master’s bloody mess.
He did everything for his master — running the butchery, making him tea and even putting shoes on his small feet.
It reminded me of a white character from JM Coetzee’s memoirs, Summertime, (the author’s father, in fact) who conscientiously did his own manual labour.
Once when he had to do renovations on the family home, he did his own shovelling, mixing sand and stone and pushing the wheelbarrow.
“Yet he is not unhappy. What he finds himself doing is what people like him should have been doing ever since 16 52, namely, his own dirty work.”
The servant of Strike’s production is reminiscent of one of those workers, embarrassingly loyal and one who would, if it ever became necessary, lay down his life for his master.
I can see why my friend disliked the accents of the play: South Africa now is a world away from a town in the 19 50s, the period in which the play is set.
This portrayal of interpersonal politics is out of sync with the world we have come to know post-19 94. But that aside, the play is an exquisite production, its mood edgy.
In The Butcher Brothers there is no dialogue. This, of course, makes particular demands on the actors who have to fill in the silence with expressive acting of varying degrees of sophistication.
Yet a completely soundless play would perhaps be too enervating, so into this voice vacuum the characters let out carefully calibrated noises: a police siren, a baby crying, a butcher’s knife slicing into flesh.
The production features Mongi Mthombeni as the retired white ballroom dancer and the Rhodes University-educated Jaques de Silva as the servant.
The metamorphosis of Mthombeni, who has worked in opera, physical theatre and comedy productions, into a butcher is incomplete, perhaps suggested by his tight trousers, his white gloves, his delicate movements and his unsure gait.
But into this void, De Silva, mostly in a blue worksuit, steps in and, playing several characters, proves his versatility.
The play, first shown at the National Arts Festival in Grahams-town and part of the Wits 969 Festival, is disturbing, dark and brooding.
The Butcher Brothers runs at the Barney Simon Theatre in the Market Theatre Complex, Newtown, until October 17