BWW Reviews: Provocative BROTHERS IN BLOOD at the Artscape Arena

Mike van Graan's BROTHERS IN BLOOD is one of those plays that arrives with a distinguished pedigree thanks to a strong production history, while also owing a great deal to Van Graan's reputation as a self-styled cultural activist. First produced in 2009, the play has received solid critical acclaim as well as a Naledi Award for Best New South African Script in 2010 and a Standard Bank Ovation Award at the National Arts Festival in 2012. Van Graan has established himself as a theatrical maverick, devout to his vision of the arts as a socio-political weapon. Tackling issues like cultural and religious differences, xenophobia, crime and terrorism, BROTHERS IN BLOOD certainly aims to be provocative theatre and - for the most part - it succeeds.

Following the stories of five individuals, BROTHERS IN BLOOD introduces several narrative threads that all finally intersect in the life of a young woman, Leila Abrahams (played by Aimee Valentine). Leila lives with her father, Abubaker (David Dennis), on the Cape Flats. It is 1998, a time when Cape Town was fraught with tension and paranoia due to drug-related gang warfare, a spike in violent criminal acts and multiple bombings across the city. A group known as People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD) emerged during this decade, presenting itself as community based group that stood against problems such as these but perceived, by some, to be a group of Islamic terrorists whose vigilantism was as much a part of the problem as the drug lords themselves.

Abubaker and Leila are caught up in this environment, themselves affected by the violence around them. Abubaker, his deceased wife's estate having been settled, thinks it might be time for them to move to a safer neighbourhood, which brings him into contact with Brian Cohen (David Dukas), a Jewish doctor whose latent prejudice against Muslims is awakened by the hysteria surrounding PAGAD, despite the genuine relationships he must have built up with individuals in the Hanover Park community where his clinic is situated.

Leila connects with two other people who become involved in this web of circumstances. The first is Fadiel Suleiman (Harrison Makubalo), a refugee from Somalia with whom she becomes romantically involved. The second is a Christian minister, Lionel Fredericks (Kurt Egelhof), who has his own secret history when it comes to Christian-Islam relations.

The play makes use of a fractured, episodic structure that engages the audience's attention. There are shifts in time, in register and in style as the piece progresses and Van Graan uses these techniques to juxtapose the various situations in which the characters find themselves and to keep the audience critically aware of the issues at hand. As written, BROTHERS IN BLOOD is compelling drama.

The performances largely capture the complex shifts that are negotiated in the writing. As Abubaker, Dennis offers a subtle performance that captures the character's dignity and vulnerability, his compassion and his humiliation at the hands of those who lack the ability to see past his fez. That his masterful performance in this role was not nominated for a Fleur du Cap last season was an egregious oversight.

Valentine's performance as Leila captures neatly the idea of a woman caught between two worlds, that which appears prescribed to her because of her heritage and that which offers her opportunity. Her portrayal is as resourceful as the character she is playing. Makubalo plays Fadiel like a raw nerve, revealing the interior landscape of a man who has had everything he holds dear taken away from him. As the play unravels the circumstances that brought him to this position, Makubalo shows the audience the person that has been lost in the process.

In some ways, Egelhof has the most obviously showy role as the charismatic Christian Reverend Fredericks. His deliveries to his congregation leave no doubt as to why this man commands such a following in his church. Egelhof also neatly captures Lionel's dilemma in moments when the character realises that his actions are out of step with his morals.

The only performance in this production that does not come together is David Dukas's portrayal of Brian Cohen. Not only does his characterisation lack the nuances that bring to life the characters that surround him, it also falls short as a performance of Jewish identity. In a play that grapples with perceptions of identity and in a production in which the rest of the company manages to find specificity without descending into stereotypes, this undermines theatrically the care Van Graan has taken with establishing an omniscient and objective point of view dramatically and makes for a climax that feels safer than it should.

Greg Homann's direction of BROTHERS IN BLOOD was singled out for a Silver Ovation at last year's National Arts Festival. I felt more ambiguous about his achievements at the helm of this play. The strengths in his production are in his ability to imbue the text with rhythm and to get his actors playing for high stakes in each and every scene. As a theatrical experience, Homann has crafted a piece of theatre that is relentless and engrossing although one or two moments flirt with bombast, such as when the characters all march into a tableau early on in the production.

I was less convinced that Homann achieved his vision of making the play, as he outlines in his programme notes, 'a metaphor for religious conflict worldwide - from the Crusades to Israel/Palestine, from Lebanon to Ireland.' While that metaphor is implicit in Van Graan's writing, with some mention of the conflict in Israel and Palestine and the more vividly referenced war in Somalia, there's nothing in Homann's production that makes that link explicit enough for this production of BROTHERS IN BLOOD to take on that kind of allegorical significance.

The design of the stage, costumes and lighting are all handled by Denis Hutchinson, with the costumes based on original designs by Sarah Roberts. The set is immensely effective. Three monumental frameworks of steel and wire, covered in a collage of newspaper, dominate the space and overshadow the proceedings, supporting the edgy atmosphere that is so essential to the piece. The lighting too helps the piece to shift rapidly in mood, contributing to the rhythmic drive so carefully plotted into the production by Homann. So too does the original score by Michael Watt, although there are some moments when Watt overscores the action being played.

As a piece of writing, BROTHERS IN BLOOD lives up to the reputation it has earned for itself. There is a great deal to take away from the play about our lives in this country, about our conditioned responses to one another and about acknowledging the power of asking ourselves the question Van Graan leaves us with: "What would you do?" If the intention of this play is to activate the social awareness of its audiences, then it succeeds in spades.

BROTHERS IN BLOOD performs at the Artscape Arena in Cape Town until 11 May prior to a run at The Playhouse Loft Theatre in Durban and the National Arts Festival from 27 June - 4 July. Bookings can be made at Computicket.

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