BWW Reviews: Hyland's Evocative Staging of WOUNDS TO THE FACE a Perfect Choice for Student Theatre

As a playwright, Howard Barker's approach tends to be one that antagonises its audience into playing with meaning as its individual members peel back the layers of narrative, theme, style and staging that combine in the creation of a theatrical performance. One is often left with a delicious sense of uncertainty after negotiating Barker's plays. Ambiguities bubble underneath the surface of the text, with bursts of something not unlike molten lava breaking through the ashen residue that the experience of so much theatre from the literary tradition cakes upon us. As a play text, WOUNDS TO THE FACE is perhaps not as brutal an onslaught on audience reception as some of Barker's other plays. Nonetheless, this production by the University of Cape Town's Drama Department certainly does reveal how difficult his work can be to realise as theatre, especially for young actors who - I think - can take away a great deal from engaging with a piece like this.

Barker sets up a very clear thesis in WOUNDS TO THE FACE. It is one that is explicit in the play's name, and even its fragmented form is implicit in the title. Through a series of eighteen episodic scenes, Barker explores different methods through which the face is used to construct, deconstruct and reconstruct identity as well as how these processes are affected by wounds, whether inflicted by oneself or another, naturally or artificially, literally or figuratively. Narcissus flits past a woman at a mirror as terrorists tear down posters of a deposed dictator. Masked French aristocrats exist alongside unmasked African emperors. Two men with the same face battle out their sameness in hand-to-hand combat. The piece jumps through space and time, dips in and out of classical and contemporary mythologies and shifts between the popular and the political.

Whether the audience is to be able to accept a world in which this kind of co-existence is possible is up for debate, but post post-modernism, the world of the stage itself is as readily accepted a space as any for a thoughtful spectator. Where the audience most certainly is divided, in true Barker style, is in what resonates most strongly for whom. Someone who sees selfies as a way of life will perceive WOUNDS TO THE FACE very differently from someone who recalls whispers of the superstition that every time a photograph is taken of you, a piece of your soul goes along with it. It follows then, in another trademark of Barker's theatre, that it is impossible for every audience member to grasp everything in the play to the same degree. Barker knows that a play cannot be all things to all people and rather than sidestepping that acknowledgement, he exploits it. So even if WOUNDS TO THE FACE represents Barker at his most accessible, he remains true to his objective of making art that is what he calls 'a problem of understanding'. Grappling with the ideas presented in the play yields interesting rewards.

The three biggest challenges for the young actors in Geoffrey Hyland's staging of the play are the physical demands of the text itself, the task of jumping instantaneously into the characters' most complex experiences and the shifting from one character into another as they play moves through its episodic structure.

Barker's text is as heightened as Shakespearean verse, so it offers young actors a feast of trials in preparing for its delivery and a cornucopia of rewards when the words land well. Donna Cormack-Thomson offers some well sustained vocal work as A Woman at a Mirror, onstage for the entire play as she plies makeup on her face. Roberto Meyer, who shares the first scene with her and also serves as a ubiquitous presence on stage as A Man, displays a fine sense of the musicality of Barker's words but falters somewhat in his articulation.

The episodic nature of the piece does not give the actors much time to build up characterisation. WOUNDS TO THE FACE demands that they to spring right into climactic and definitive moments in its characters' lives, with the same amount of depth that they would have in a more traditionally structured play. It is not unlike film work in this regard. Oarabile Ditsele is a live wire as A Soldier whose face is completely maimed beyond recognition - some excellent makeup work here - using, at times, only the voice and an eye to uncover the depths of the character's wounds. Sanchia Davids as A Dictator also hits the mark: politicking her way out of a tough situation when she comes up against four insurrectionist Youths, she swings neatly between authority and desperation, always with a sense of gleeful control and enjoyment of the game.

Finally, the transformation from one character to the next is faced by many of the actors in WOUNDS TO THE FACE. Schalk Bezuidenhout taps into the contrasting rhythms of A Roué with a fetish for the face of his younger self and one of two Doubles who both want sole possession of the face they share. Bezuidenhout is joined in the latter scene by Kiroshan Naidoo in one of the comic highlights of the play.

There is one member of this large ensemble who masters all three of these challenges. As A Prisoner, Awethu Hleli chips away at the strata of the person she has become, leaving the audience with a clear picture of who she once was and how she came to be the way she is. When she appears as An Empress later in the play, she is unrecognisable. Hers is a truly remarkable performance.

Hyland's production expects a great deal from the company of student players in WOUNDS TO THE FACE and his hand in guiding their performances is strongly felt. The aesthetic he has created, along with Leigh Bishop's costume designs and Luke Ellenbogen's lighting, is a vibrant, colour-saturated one. His handling of the each vignette seeks out the key transactions of the play, going for the emotional core of each in true Hyland style. Bishop's costuming is inventive and eclectic, and Ellenbogen's lighting, as it bounces off skin, body, space and smoke, really helps to bring a sense of visual unity to the production.

Watching a Barker play in performance can be like paying a public penance without any hope of absolution. While WOUNDS TO THE FACE possibly offers a greater sense of resolution than some of his other plays, it is nonetheless a piece that nudges everyone involved to engage in some deep introspection. The play it is a perfect choice for a university production, one that reflects the University of Cape Town's commitment to training new generations of South African stage actors, particularly in their handling of contemporary text-based work. Having watched a great deal of student theatre over the past two years, particularly at the National Arts Festival, one thing that stands out about this particular department's students is that even when they falter, they are always present, accepting the gauntlet thrown down in front of them to grow into themselves as the actors of tomorrow.

WOUNDS TO THE FACE will take place at The Bindery on UCT's Hiddingh Campus at 37 Orange Street, Gardens. The production runs until 7 October at 19:00 nightly, with no performance on Sunday. Bookings can be made through www.webtickets.co.za, with tickets costing R60 for general admission and R45 for students and pensioners.

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