THE BULAWAYO BOOGIE. Directed by Debi Hawkins, with Michele Maxwell and Mark Elderkin. At The Rosebank Theatre, Alma Road, Rosebank until March 26. RAFIEK MAMMON reviews.
WHEN brand new work is presented in the city, in front of its very first audience no less, one feels as though one has to be a tad more forgiving – especially if the script has irregularities.
The Bulawayo Boogie is not without its minor inconsistencies, but it certainly is a refreshingly new, funny, silver-tongued piece of work penned by celebrated theatre-maker Nicholas Ellenbogen.
Billed as a musical, and set against an ultra-conservative 1930s Bulawayo backdrop, it stars Michele Maxwell and Mark Elderkin: a two-some whose life journeys would have been inextricably different had they not momentously met when they did.
As a pair, they are in many respects as different as night and day, each coming into the other’s life as an independent individual, yet sharing an uncanny camaraderie that later borders on near co-dependence.
The Bohemian, often inebriated Irish piano teacher, Moira (Maxwell) is intent on teaching music and the piano the way she lives her life: challenging the status quo and making waves by exploring new territory.
In her case, it is her love of American jazz.
And how dare she, when European classical music should be the order of the day? Richard (Elderkin’s character) is a straight-laced English businessman who understands how things stand from a corporate and societal perspective.
It is remarkable how Ellenbogen has taken a universal theme of juxtaposing two disparate characters and woven it into a storyline that creates a plausible microcosm in a little lounge depicting Bulawayo in the 1930s. The writing is effortless, lucid and droll. It almost feels like he made the impossible possible: he made two parallel lines meet. And while in mathematics that is not possible, he proves that in the arts it is.
We find out that he is a successful businessman, but that he is an English and philosophy major. That in itself, is enough to pique his interest in the older, wiser and out of kilter Moira.
A few niggles mainly pertain to how songs are introduced and whether all songs should necessarily be full length, and not perhaps snippets to make for easier textual transition?
Michelle Maxwell is sublime in the role of the unconventional Moira, every inch believable from the second she appears on the stage right through to the curtain call, singing gloriously and playing the piano like a maven.
Her Irish accent is peppered just perfectly – consistent, and not too heavy to make the audience strain to decipher.
While director Hawkins’ choice of Elderkin’s deliberately understated, even unobtrusive Richard underpins the production’s theme of apposition, it does however feel like Richard is less layered as a character, perhaps even underwritten with not enough muscle to flex with his too unvarying demeanour.
It is always a pleasure to experience the illustrious Ellenbogen’s mind at work.
The Bulawayo Boogie is something to behold, and as a new theatre event, adds tremendous value to the theatrical landscape.
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