BWW Reviews: Penelope Youngleson's NAT a Noble and Essential Reality Check

Penelope Youngleson and Philip Rademeyer's Rust Co-Operative is a theatre collective that does not shy away from controversial and provocative subject matter. The company's new play, NAT, written and directed by Youngleson is a brutal, no-holds-barred look at the reality of the lives of children in disadvantaged communities. For people who live in the green, leafy suburbs of Cape Town, like those that surround the Rosebank Theatre where NAT premiered last week, the play is a reality check, exposing an injustice that is all too easy to ignore.

Using community-specific Guy Fawkes practices as a loose framework, the play starts off with two children, Meisie and Jongetjie, playing with matches onstage. "If you play with matches," my grandmother always said, "you'll wet your bed." Thus the first, most innocent resonance of the title emerges in the piece. That innocence dissipates quickly when the action of the play begins and the audience gets to know the two characters and a third, Ntombazana, who embody the play's catastrophic tagline: "Nat agter die ore. Nat tussen die bene. Woestyn in jou mond." Whatever topic the play confronts, from rape and teenage pregnancy to bullying and corporal punishment, there is one common factor that characterises society's failure in nurturing and protecting our children: absence. Whether through an absence of morality, mentoring, support or concern, South Africans are failing - says Youngleson - an entire generation of children.

Absence is not where she leaves things. Along with what is missing in these children's lives come the perpetrators of violence against them and the context that binds everything together. Youngleson's choice of Guy Fawkes as a unifying motif for the action is a masterful idea. The commemoration of a failed English assassin has no purpose in this country other than to represent the vestiges of colonialism that echo in the way South African communities are structured and divided, in the way education is approached in this country, and in the way that (imposed) language fails to bridge divides across race, class and creed.

In this way, Youngleson manages not only to assign blame for what is happening to our children but also, more importantly, to point towards some of the things that may be causing the problems in the first place. After all, meaningful change must consist of more than removing the symptoms - but the size of the job that faces South Africa here is almost overwhelming. One aspect that NAT needs to explore further is the challenge of finding a way to transform the despair it instils into outrage and motivation for change. If ever there was an issue worth protesting in contemporary South Africa, it is this one, and the piece falters in offering no impetus toward action beyond its exposition of a horrifying set of circumstances. In a humane and functional society, that exposition should be enough; ours, sadly, is not that selfless.

NAT is brought to life by two remarkable onstage performances. Shifting swiftly as the play's narrative develops, Iman Isaacs and Richard September are live wires as Meisie and Jongetjie. Sparks fly as they negotiate each other and their environment, integrating emotionally textured vocal work with physical dexterity that reveals that which the word cannot and suggests the physical violence to which these children are subjected in their daily existence. The various ways in which the pair's raw vulnerability manifests itself in performance is powerful and compelling. Ntombazana is brought to life through a series of voiceovers by Indalo Stofile. Stofile's vocal work is good, but her absence in the space makes the character feel distant and disconnected. Given that Ntombazana delivers some of the most important aspects of NAT's social commentary, this is perhaps an aspect of the production that needs to be revisited.

NAT is a piece of theatre that has significant things to say about the South Africa in which we find ourselves today. The manner in which it says these things may need some refining, but Youngleson's quest to shatter the comfortable ignorance adopted by the privileged when considering the everyday realities of people who live just down the road from them is a noble one. More than that, it is an essential one.

NAT runs until the end of January at the Rosebank Theatre, playing Wednesdays through Saturdays, after which the play will run at KKNK in Oudtshoorn from 9-11 April.

To book for the Rosebank Theatre run, visit Webtickets or call Liz on 072 316 6133 or email the Rosebank Theatre.com or Rust Co-Operative. Please note there is a no under 18 age restriction for language.

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