FRINGE REVIEW: STATEMENTS AFTER AN ARREST UNDER THE IMMORALITY ACT

It's hard to believe that a play featuring two very good-looking people who are kept almost entirely naked throughout could be boring. But when all the main characters do is talk in riddles and dance around the issues that keep them from reaching their goals, Athol Fugard's Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act is not an interesting study of love, of classism, of racism, or even of individuals. It's just frustrating, and terribly slow.

Written during the apartheid years, Statements follows the moments immediately before, and immediately following, the titular event. Frieda and Errol, a white woman and a black man in South Africa, have been lovers for some time, despite the differences in race and class, and Errol's marriage. When they are arrested for their illegal affair, they are forced to defend their love. For all their speeches, however, very little drama seems to emerge, and there is never any intensity or sense of danger. They talk and talk, but they seem to have very little to say. And it's a pity: while the premise of the play is rooted in South Africa's past, the themes of governmental involvement in private lives are universal, and very timely. If the dialogues moved the plot along, or expanded on the themes, the play would be an excellent condemnation of government interference, but unfortunately, none of the talk seems to lead anywhere.

The two primary performers are fine, if a little difficult to understand through their accents. Megan Leigh gives the delicate and frightened Frieda some fire, and Noel Arthur gives a bittersweet performance as the wounded and emotional Errol. Peter Wallace's direction does little to bring any blood to the production, but he does some very nice work with live camera feeds and photographs, turning us into the policemen observing the action. It's a very nice device, and by making us the voyeurs who cause Frieda and Errol such pain, Wallace seems to be decrying not only the wrongdoings of the government, but of us, the eternal audience that takes such perverse interest in other people's personal lives.