BOYKIE AND GIRLIE. Written and directed by Allan Kolski Horwitz, with Khutjo Green and Craig Morris. At the Alexander Upstairs Theatre until Saturday. TRACEY SAUNDERS reviews
AS the holiday season draws to a close most of the visitors from Gauteng provinces have returned home.
At least two residents, Khutjo Green and Craig Morris have not, and Capetonians have the opportunity to watch this production which premièred in July 2014 at The Wits Downstairs Theatre in Johannesburg as part of Drama for Life’s season Theatre and Politics. Green will also be remembered for her brilliant performance in the 2013 production The Line, directed by Gina Shmukler.
Her intimate performance gave a human face to the newspaper headlines detailing the xenophobic violence which devastated the country in 2008.
Morris brought two of his one man shows to Cape Town last year and there are moments where Johnny Boskak, his out of luck and desperate character from Johnny Boskak is Feeling Funny slips onto this stage. The cast’s credentials are impeccable, but sadly their performances alone are not enough to lift this script out of mediocrity.
Momentarily the attempts to re-create a Beckett-type sense are glimpsed as we are voyeurs of a bleak relationship that waits in vain for a moment of a redemption.
Horwitz is an accomplished writer and in addition to four other plays The Pump Room, Comrade Babble, Jerico and Book Marks, he has published two volumes of poetry, Saving Water and There Are Two Birds at My Window.
The writing is dense and there are some pithy truths about love, life and the creative process hidden in the dialogue.
The possibility of exploring gender power dynamics lies just beneath the surface, but is never fully examined.
Boykie is a failed writer, stuck in writer’s block. We know this because he tells us, Girlie tells us and his motley and moth eaten t-shirt bearing the faded Time of the Writer logo tells us.
The realistic set replete with stove, kitchen table and a toilet highlight the domesticity of their mundane existence.
The presence of the sanitaryware also provides a possibility for numerous interactions between the couple while he is using the toilet and the scatological references and innuendos are rife.
Despite their impassioned monologues and obvious vulnerabilities the characters lack depth, and it is difficult to become emotionally invested in them either individually, or in their jaded shared existence.
Their relationship is underpinned with a sense of threatening violence. There is no visible physical violence but it is there, just below the surface and heightening of that particular tension would strengthen the impact of their interactions.
Boykie stops just short of punching or hitting Girlie, but is less restrained with his vitriolic speech.
There is a particular quality to the abasement that he delivers when he recounts his previous sexual exploits with relish.
Green’s visible anguish is one of the moments when the despair of her character is palpable. He is relentless in his verbal onslaught and the cruelty of his motivation is nauseating.
When she counters with her anecdotes and memories they are not seriously regarded by him and spark little interest unless he sees some literary merit in them for his own use.
Watching their relationship survive is a torrid experience and one feels compelled to advise them to just walk away from the whole sorry mess of it.
Despite the rare glimpses of tenderness and momentary expressions of sexual desire the quality of their life appears dismal.
The banal repetition of chopping vegetables, preparing and cooking a meal, consuming it and then excreting it all seems soul destroying.
There is a relentless despair to their coupling which doesn’t abate. The possibility of thriving, or any personal fulfilment seems as remote as the arrival of Godot himself.
One thing Boykie and Girlie will do is give you a renewed appreciation for relationships which do work. The production serves as a cautionary tale to guard against the stifling capacity of routine and the mind-numbing and soul destroying toxicity of staying in a failed relationship.
Look out for Mike Bartlett’s dark comedy Contractions, first presented by London’s Royal Court Theatre – it debuts at the Alexander Bar on the January 25, starring Janna Ramos-Violante ( Constellations, Venus in Fur,) Emily Child ( The Pervert Laura, Born in the RSA,) and is directed by Greg Karvellas ( Bad Jews, Champ).
l 021 300 1652, Book: www.alexanderbar.co.za