By BRUCE DENNILL
1789 / Directed by Phyllis Klotz and Smal Ndaba / Joburg Theatre, Braamfontein, Johannesburg
Any theatre production that deals with the French Revolution as a topic cannot help but be compared to that musical, However, this innovative, immersive piece is, bar the historical milieu and the style of the costumes, a very different proposition.
Wilhelm Disbergen’s design, combined with the stark, exciting (if you’re a theatre fan and love the complex depths of these facilities) presentation in a performance area somewhere behind the stage at the huge Joburg Theatre, make simply arriving for a performance of 1789 exhilarating. Five wooden platforms – one in the centre and four spread out around it – provide stages for parts of the story as well as percussive instruments for cast members who dance or pound on them in time with a drummer who keeps the tempo for the songs that regularly break the narration as well as adding dynamics and energy to the action.
There is plenty of the latter, with the cast constantly on the move, everyone playing multiple roles and changing costumes regularly. The audience, seated in the gaps between the four outer platforms, are made to feel very much part of the narrative, close enough to feel the vibrations of the actors’ footsteps and the reverberation of their powerful voices.
That regular character swapping does create one of the piece’s challenges in terms of keeping tabs on exactly what is happening at any given point. Someone who was recently a queen might now be a serf; someone who was a rioter might become a philosopher in a turban; and a soldier might become a politician – with all of them constantly involved in ongoing discussions and interactions. The cast’s discipline in ensuring that they collectively never miss a mark in spite of all of this complexity should be lauded and appreciated, though the combination of the acoustics of the space, the differing accents of individual performers and the performance in the round meaning that speakers are sometimes facing away from at least part of the audience as they deliver their lines means that staying exactly on course with the plot as an audience member is occasionally tricky.
Audiences with a fuller grasp of the details of the French Revolution will get more out of this production than those who know only about the barricades in the Paris streets or the execution of Marie Antoinette. The events dealt with instead – the gathering of the Estates General; the Rise of the Third Estate, the Tennis Court Oath, the storming of the Bastille and the Declaration of the Rights Of Man – are not as well known outside of France and those with a deeper interest in world history and are more difficult to weave into a retelling that has the romance and intrigue of something with more clearly delineated, traditional good versus evil roles.
With the play being a collaboration between Sibikwa Arts Centre, Théâtre du Soleil and the French Institute of South Africa, such a deep dive into French history and culture is fitting, and it’s impossible to ignore the possible echoes of what happened in 1789 in contemporary society, with widespread political unhappiness (at best) being a fact of life two and a half centuries later. And the thrill of being almost surrounded by drama and music and emotion and choreography is memorable.