Ubuntu

[bcholmes]

the_siobhan and I went to the Tarragon last night to check out a play called Ubuntu (no relationship to the Linux distro of the same name).

The play is the result of collaboration between groups of Canadian actors and South African actors, and there's a plot about a Cape Towner named Jabba coming to Toronto to find out what happened to his father, Philani, who came to Toronto 20 years earlier. The story is neatly told over two time periods. There are parts of the play that are in Xhosa, without any attempt to translate it.

The thing I loved most about the show was the physicality of its staging. There's an early scene, for example, in which the main character is in an airport and the other actors walking briskly back and forth in the background in a way that creates the impression of the type of busy-ness that you see in airport travellers. And there's a sequence involving a fight between Philani and Sarah that breaks into this incredible piece of choreography involving a fight over a chair (that's a bit of a simplification, but it's still amazing to watch).

The set design is also a thing of wonder. Initially, it looks like there are three walls that made of old, beige suitcases. As the show proceeds, it becomes clear that there are three revolving doors, a closet, two storage cabinets and a refrigerator. The set deftly becomes a biology classroom, a restaurant, a library, and a mausoleum. There's an amazing scene of Libby in her bedroom, lying on her bed. But in order to be visible to the audience, they convey the sense of the fourth wall being in the ceiling. Libby is lying on the vertical bed. Two others hold a side table and garbage can vertically out toward the audience. Even the transitions are beautifully executed.

(There's a scene in which they talk about the game show, Definition. Siobhan commented that only Canadians of a certain age get that.)