By BRUCE DENNILL
Circle Song / Directed by Caroline Calburn / POPArt, Greenside East, Johannesburg
It’s easy to forget how complex family is – experiences in that context are often lived day to day, along with all the admin that distracts from paying attention to what is important. It might be easier to process all of those details in retrospect, and with a storyteller’s flair for connecting the dots in creative and multifaceted ways, the narrative becomes instantly more interesting. Add to that a performance – by the story’s writer and star Ashley Dowds – that is so committed it seems unfeasible that he’ll come out the other side without a suite of fresh injuries every night and one character’s meandering family history and all its dramas, and Circle Song becomes a vibrant, pulsating, thought-provoking organism.
Performed in the round – quite literally, as all the action takes place inside a chalk circle – the piece gives Dowds the opportunity to interact directly with multiple members of the audience, which makes the writing and delivery feel even more personal. More chalk or talcum powder, scattered on the floor or dusted on letters or suitcases to underline how old they are, gets blown around, scuffed onto shoes or trouser knees, serves as a sort of expression of the timeline, with Dowds’ footprints, white on the black floor, criss-crossing and then getting layered on top of each other. This effect – the progressive colouring in of the stage as Dowds’ monologue colours in the spaces between family events (from the patriarchs who originally left Northern Ireland for Africa to the character’s mother falling into a coma, with all the different accents, physical theatre and accents all of that entails) – gives the play something not often experienced in one-man shows; a rich, almost tangible texture.
Being so close to the action, with chairs set up almost on the edge of the circle, some of that quality is probably physical – the powder in the air; the glint of sweat on Dowds’ temples as his ceaseless movement and fervour take their toll – but it’s also to do with the structure of the script, which combines cross-cut, quick-fire snippets of memories, conversations, historical narratives and one-man physical recreations of all of the above.
It’s possible – likely, even – that this structure could result in every audience member in the room having a slightly different idea of who all the characters in the play are and what their interactions with each other and the story mean, but that is in no way a shortfall in terms of the writing or ideas put to paper and then brought to life. You’ll feel intrigued, challenged … and impressed. This is unconventional theatre-making, and it buzzes with soul.