Review: Foreplay, Theatre Royal Stratford East
STAGE
Foreplay, Theatre Royal Stratford East
1/5
IN A NUTSHELL
Characters are supposedly linked by their passionate need to fulfill their sexual desires in this play by Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom, writes Miriam Gillinson
REVIEW
Foreplay is a series of sketches, which supposedly look at 10 disparate characters and the same sexual urges that link them together.
In reality it is a vague excuse for the actors to get it on, on-stage.
But there are only so many anal sex soliloquies a girl can take and as the "shocking" sex scenes turned from raunchy to plain dull, I found myself wishing the writer would just skip the foreplay and get it over with.
Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom received rave reviews for his previous play Township Stories, which was lauded a frank and frantic look at life in South Africa.
But there isn't any life here. There isn't even any Africa.
Save for a few scattered posters and the occasional line in local dialect this play is devoid of context. The fact we cannot place these already pallid seduction scenes drains them of all colour, immediacy and life.
The actors give it their all but it isn't enough. Mandla Gaduka performs well, but only by laying the comedy on thick and playing it for laughs.
Any glimmer of subtlety the actors do find is stamped out by some heavy-handed and naive direction from writer/director Grootboom.
He hasn't served his play well here. Every textbook trick is pulled from the hat: the lights pulse red whenever love is mentioned, they dim lower still when the chat gets heavy and heavy piano chords strike when things get ugly.
Grotboom even chucks a soundtrack from Romeo and Juliet in case we've missed the point.
No chance of that in this pantomime of love at Theatre Royal Stratford East, which is (thankfully), behind me now.
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I am sorry that Miriam did not enjoy this show! Its such a pity that I did not have the opportunity to buy her a drink at the bar beforehand and tell her something about the context of South Africa.
I enjoyed the play and thought that it was very good entertainment. Of course I have to admit that I do love live performances. This was a good one for me and it was apparently successful in SA according to the web otherwise it would not have come to the UK. It's also relevant that last month I had the pleasure of seeing Umoja at the Victory Theatre in Joberg with the added pleasure of a girl from the cast beside me.
There are some aspects that would improve it, such as more African music and the initial opening dialogue being in Zulu rather than the minority Setswana which is only understood by 8% of the population. Later dialogue was in Zulu though. I am trying to get past Barry at the Theatre to discuss this with the writer/director Mpumelelo ( Grootboom ).
All I can say is that I enjoyed the show and anyone who thinks that I am seeking cheap thrills should realise that I am over 50 !
Tony Glazier