Review: Kym Vaitiekus shares his thoughts on DARK NOON

Kym Vaitiekus shares his thoughts on DARK NOON

Friday 10th January 7:30 pm Sydney Town Hall

 DARK NOON duels it out with the Wild West legacy.

Writer, Director Tue Biering leads this passionate, energetic and talented cast to tell the story of a European settlement that evolved to become the America Wild Frontier.

Mandla Gaduka, Katlego Kaygee Letsholonyana, Lillian Malulyck, Bongani Bennedict Masango, Siyambonga Alfred Mdubeki, Joe Young, Thulani Zwane are the ensemble that display expert skills in a range of performance techniques.

The intense dramatic and grounded moments are profound. The rumbunctious and chaotic movement/choreography is finely tuned. The comedic timing is on point and the audience participation is cleverly crafted.

The cast put their heart and soul into their performance, we saw the heart in their fierce character portrayals, and we were gifted by their soulful discourse in the conclusion.

With a rough and ready pace, we experience an in-your-face performance that is reminiscent of educational tour companies. Historical dramatic moments, audience members as characters, physical comedy, makeshift costuming and descriptive narrative.

The stage occupies most of the Town hall space. It's covered with a parched, earthy patterned carpet. As the story of the colonisation of America commences, the African ensemble wear blonde wigs and throw  powder over their faces to portray the white experience and perspective. That pale face look is held throughout the night, reminding us on the duality at play.

The audience surrounds the space on three sides.

This tight ensemble, all with powerful performances, take us on the nine-chapter journey.

From ‘Going West’ and ‘Owing the Land’ to discovering ‘Gold’, the story unfolds through a ‘Primitive Civilization’, exploring both the ‘Love of God’ and the harsh ‘Law of the Land’.

The cast build a wild west town as the evening unfolds with clever sets by Johan Kolkjaer.  Inventive set pieces arise with see-through elements  so the perimeter audience can see all the various aspects of this production, including the large backdrop screen.

Biering uses an eclectic mix of performance devices.

There is narration, connected performance, slapstick, audience participation, live to large screen technology and symbolic costuming.

Some of these elements seem incongruent.

One moment we are emotionally devastated by historical facts enacted by superb performances and the next we are giggling at cute audience participation. Usually, we are amused first to then be faced with the cold hard facts, emphasising the impact of the drama.

The different directorial choices work at times and at others seems awkward.

There is a camera on stage that projects various narrations to the giant screen. This allows us to see some remarkable performances in close-up.

This technology also allows for some theatre choreography.

As with all current production that include screen elements the content can seem out of sync, as the time for video to reach the screens takes longer than the time for the audio to reach the speakers. This lag is more noticeable when the vision from the cameras is sent wirelessly.

The cast's deep passion for the piece is undeniable, yet I found myself questioning its source, as the narrative felt overly direct and straightforward, lacking the depth of insightful layers.

And curiously, as this African ensemble tell the tale, it only touches on the history of slavery, when it’s briefly mentioned that the North and the South went to war over this injustice.

Although, the hardship that non-European immigrants, who are also looking for a better life, had to endure and the systematic devastation of the indigenous population were represented.

The almost two-hour production takes one on a roller coaster journey of the emergence of the Wild West.

Some of the history we know, and some facts are a discovery. When there is one woman to 500 men, some males became the woman in the bedroom and were not considered homosexual.

In times when ‘white lives don’t matter’ and surviving was an ordeal, cannibalism arose.

The key to the night is revealed at the epilogue, when the cast tell their personal stories of how their lives and society were impacted by the Hollywood juggernaut.

As youth, they and their communities discovered the genre of the Wild West cinema and how those movies romanticised the gun. How their own societal gun violence was influenced/initiated by these films of the Frontier. One cast member declares “I love to shoot things”.

The American Western, that glamourize the law of the jungle, had a profound effect on the South African communities.

This revelation is the the awakening of the night and an important historical fact to be explored.

As a filmmaker I wondered why the Australian culture had less of a gun and violent fascination until I discovered that those Hollywood movies of the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s when screened on TV in those decades, had the extreme brutality censored.

Our society didn’t have the same exposure to violence that the screens of Africa gave to their communities, as they strived to survive and thrive in an unjust world.

But the entertaining storytelling of the colonisation of America was a long journey to get to the payoff.

I would prefer that the night was weighted toward the cast lives, and that the insights they shared had more screen time.

See DARK NOON for the impassioned and dedicated ensemble, stay for the candid personal stories

Photography @ VictorFrankowski

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