PANSA Playground for Playwrights

PANSA opened their festival of new South African playwriting in Cape Town on the 18 and 19 May with four staged readings of scripts selected as national finalists. While Cape Town hosted the comedy finalists, Durban was dealt the drama scripts and Johannesburg  – unable to alliterate with anything theatrically useful – took the one- and two-handers. Being, as it turns out, rather partial to writers, I popped in for two of the readings at the Magnet Theatre.

Suburbanalia by Peter Heyes tracks a chaotic extended family over the course of one Sunday. Three generations get together over the Sunday roast, but the real roasting is just about to begin. Heyes’ script allows us to tuck into the trauma, knowing full well this could be a dysfunctional day in any of our families. While not a strict comedy – there is darkness a-plenty – it generally succeeds in treading the laughter line between genres, while simultaneously playing into and subverting stereotypes. Against the odds, Heyes manages to create a story that is both funny and poignant, political and personal, heavy and irreverent. The balance isn’t always perfectly struck – I found one or two of the more pointed political commentary moments slightly awkwardly integrated and occasional dialogue too laboured for laughs – but a reading is exactly the kind of valuable opportunity for discovering what works and doesn’t in front of a live audience for future stagings. In fact, the fine tuning process is so fundamental to script development that it’s a pity opportunities like this aren’t more widely available, making PANSA’s festival even more vital to promoting healthy text production in SA.

Director Jacqueline Dommisse assembled a strong cast of local talent for Suburbanalia, including several particularly accomplished comedic performers. Much of the humour was, in fact, to be found in their interpretations, with the trio of siblings, though technically miscast in terms of age, proving a particular delight. Jason Potgeiter’s interpretation added a gentleness to his scripted jibes, creating a wonderful nuance to a role that could easily be overplayed. As always, Mark Elderkin’s comic timing was spot on; he nailed the fine balance between pacey delivery and strategic pause, building momentum in scenes which otherwise might have laboured under the dysfunctional family dialogue. For me, much of the laughter was in fact physical – an awkward outfit here, a raised eyebrow there – which speaks both to the strength of the cast and interpretive room in the script.

Song and Dance, written by Megan Furniss and winning the award for best direction for Ntombi Makhutshi, took my vote for most promising premise. Two bumbling thieves break into the space they’ve been staking out, only to discover  that they’ve become disoriented and entered the wrong flat. Even worse, this apartment is barren. When the homeowner returns, they discover to everyone’s surprise that it is the ex Idols Judge, bring up bad memories for one of the thieves. But now the tables are turned and power very firmly rests with the thief.

A tight three-hander with black leads and situational humour? Sounds like a production winner to me. Whilst I found the line between violence and humour quite fine at times, the concept was played out beautifully by the two would-be bumbling burglars Deon Nebulane and Anele Situlweni; Zondwa Njokweni was a wonderfully affected presenter fallen on hard times. While the script didn’t quite deliver on the premise to me, fizzling somewhat by the final wisecrack, I’d love to see this one tweaked – it has bucket loads of potential.

As Jon Keevy has noted, writers create work for actors, director, designers and technical crews, not the other way around. Despite this, lamentably little assistance is given to developing writing talent in South Africa. Emphasis on style over content is a dangerous game. I’m really excited to see PANSA stepping as usual into this space and providing a much-needed forum for the generation of – and support for – new writing.