On Stage: Shatter the night with AK47 fire

24 October 2014 - 02:24 By Lin Sampson
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DON'T MESS WITH US: Boitumelo Shisana, Don Mosenye, Zenzo Ngqobe and Tshallo Chokwe stalk the audience with the whites of their eyes in 'Silent Voice'
DON'T MESS WITH US: Boitumelo Shisana, Don Mosenye, Zenzo Ngqobe and Tshallo Chokwe stalk the audience with the whites of their eyes in 'Silent Voice'
Image: SANMARI MARAIS

Billed as a "shock to the senses", Aubrey Sekhabi's Silent Voice came over as a fender bender while the audience waited for the big bang.

Straight from the Edinburgh Festival, where it achieved less than mediocre reviews, it is crammed with AK47s and dusty clichés: Dead men don't talk, for instance.

Although acoustics were muffled, a standard join-the-dots plot emerged: crime, betrayal and blood, a combination of Reservoir Dogs and CrimeStop.

The actors were unflinchingly smash and grab supremacists as they shattered the night with the rat-a-tat of AK fire and stalked the audience, showing the whites of their eyes.

It is Police File with a pulse.

The first act was creepy, with a lot of heavy breathing in the dark. Jirre. It belongs to the "one wrong step bru' and you're a grease spot" genre that resonated with the audience.

The interaction with the audience added crunch. The man next to me in All Star sneakers and turquoise beads even interrupted the dialogue.

Despite a wobbly script and too-long monologues about how tough life was, the skilled actors kept time as they drum-drum marched together towards fate and futility.

Circumstance was on their side, an apposite time in South African history, the nature of which, despite a lot of sound effects, was submerged.

The skimpy set - tyres, old oil drums and white rag dolls - held the scene admirably. The farmer doomed to cop it held up a rag doll in front of him to indicate whiteness, a cheap shot that worked.

"I've got a six o'clock appointment," is the metaphorical gun, brought in at the beginning (Chekhov famously said that if you have a gun in the first act it should be fired in the second).

"It's six o'clock," says one of the gang in the last act before they all fall down dead.

  • 'Silent Voice' runs until November 1 at the Baxter
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