BWW Reviews: Piekaan Delivers a Star-making Performance in WRONGLY ACCUSED

WRONGLY ACCUSED is back in Cape Town for a run over the festive season in the intimate Masambe Theatre at the Baxter. The play was first presented at the Baxter's Zabalaza Festival, which provides a space for new performing artists to establish themselves in the industry. That first version of the piece was written, performed and directed by Waseef Piekaan, who has teamed up with director Basil Appollis for this commercial run of his play, a one-hander in which Piekaan takes on several diverse roles.

WRONGLY ACCUSED kicks off with the courtroom testimony of Mr Patan, an Indian storekeeper whose shop has been robbed. Marius, a naïve young man from the Cape Winelands district of De Doorns, happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and is arrested for the crime. Marius's girlfriend, Francina, and his cousin, Ronnie, whose boyfriend is a lawyer, try to put together a defence for him, but things are not looking good - until a key piece of evidence emerges in the most unlikely of places. The piece is a keen observation of human nature, looking at one situation and its consequences from a range of different perspectives.

Piekaan brings WRONGLY ACCUSED to life vividly, showing immense range in his portrayal of the half-dozen characters from whose varying perspectives the tale is told. He manages to evoke genuine pathos when playing Marius and Francina as well as delivering the many broad comic moments that punctuate the narrative, particularly when playing Ronnie and Mr Patan. He is genuinely threatening as the gangster who shares Marius's cell during the trial, and there is a sad desperation laced into his otherwise comic portrayal of Dannfred, a tik addict, later on in the play. His physical transformations from character to character are fully inhabited, and his embodiment of each is masterful. It is a star-making performance.

While Piekaan's performance is excellent, the play itself needs some refining. WRONGLY ACCUSED has a clear through line - every step of the narrative develops coherently - but the piece is in sore need of some key edits. The references in the play to itself as a performance ("Hi, I'm Waseef and this is my show..." and so on) are a little cheesy and undermine the ability of the piece to stand on its own feet. Similarly, the coda that follows the final monologue, during which Piekaan performs a scene between Marius and Francina before crawling around onstage doing a cover version of the Robbie Wessels hit "Leeuloop", is entirely unnecessary and should be cut. Piekaan could also interrogate the use of song during the piece more deeply. The energetic opening number that sets up the situation of the play works well, but other additions feel extraneous to the proceedings. All that Piekaan needs to do is focus on the story he is telling, and everything will fall into place.

In his direction of WRONGLY ACCUSED, Appollis has done tremendous work in shaping Piekaan's performances in the individual monologues. The transitions between each piece, however, needs to be handled more sensitively and creatively. Each segment ends with Piekaan walking across to a hatstand and selecting the hat that indicates his character before returning to perform centre stage. This repetitive technique disrupts the rhythmic build of the play and detracts somewhat from Piekaan's skilled transformations from character to character.

The design is simple, keeping the focus on Piekaan throughout. The hats used to indicate each character are well chosen and add just enough visual variation to the proceedings. The lighting design, by Kabelo Chalatsane, is mostly competent, but occasionally leaves Piekaan in the dark when attempting to shift into moodier states, particularly in the prison scenes. The sound design is well balanced.

WRONGLY ACCUSED needs some disciplined focus to smooth out its rough edges and come together as a unified play. It is a piece that shows immense merit and is one step closer to fulfilling the promise it showed at the Zabalaza Festival as a compelling piece of contemporary South African theatre. But although there may still be imperfections in the writing, there are none in Piekaan's delivery of his work. For an hour or so, he has you eating from the palm of his hand. It will be interesting to see how his career develops from here on out.

WRONGLY ACCUSED runs at the Baxter's Masambe Theatre at the Baxter in Cape Town until 18 January. Tickets are available at Computicket.

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