Bones
by Kay Adshead
Mama Quillo
Bush Theatre
***
Bones is the latest work from the Mama Quillo project, a women-led theatre company started by Kay Adshead and the late Lucinda Gane, to whom the piece is dedicated; Mama Quillo’s manifesto claims to involve offering “a uniquely female perspective on the really big issues of the day”.

An interesting way in which to assess the play is whether it fulfils this remit. At first glance, the subject matter – an individualized commentary on the Truth and Reconciliation process in post-apartheid South Africa – monumentally important though it still is, could be classed more accurately as a historical exposition, rather than “of the day”. However, Adshead succeeds, in no small measure through the performance of her compact cast of two, to offer the audience a new perspective through a largely invigorating examination of female passivity and empowerment.

The venue is important; the dark, intimate space of the Bush theatre presses the audience up against the action, the overhead lighting equipment combining with the mise-en-scène to create an atmosphere of claustrophobia, a sense that we are inside the house of the dying South African policeman, Joubert, with the characters, rather than simply watching them, and we feel the exogenous pressure of people and anger with them As we enter this arena, we are welcomed and challenged by the drumming of the excellent Joe Legwabe, who provides haunting vocals and rhythmic accompaniment to the action throughout, ensuring that we are swept along with the rising emotions, and not lulled into passivity when the action apparently slows.

We are made aware from the very start that here is dark matter, as Sarah Niles in her first incarnation as “Boy” endures her fatal interrogation with her unseen interrogator, Niles generating a compelling sense of threat through her unprompted exclamations. When, later in the play, Niles begins to enter into the portrayal of a woman possessed by spirits, this ability to single-handedly generate a charged atmosphere occasionally falters, but with the support of her excellent co-lead, Pauline Moran, and the occasional willing indulgence of the audience, Niles carries off her role with aplomb. Indeed, this occasional transparency works well in the context of later revelations.

Moran as Jennifer Joubert, the middle-aged white South African woman sitting day after day at her dying husband’s bedside, delving into the (as we later discover) weakly isolated moments of joy in the early days of her marriage, while unable to recall the moments of horror that frame the discourse of the play, delivers her lines with a poignancy and delicacy that adds depth and a sense of authenticity. Although it is Niles (accompanied by Legwabe) who provides the dramatic energy for the play, it is Moran who draws us into its trap, believing both in her emotional connection to her dying husband and, at the dénouement, of her capacity to condone evil.

The partnership between these two female leads is well-worked and the time-jumping between connected scenes is effectively executed, although one senses that, at an hour and twenty minutes or so, the play is a little rushed, and would perhaps bear a little less urgency given its retrospective quality. That said, the final short act of the play, where we learn that Jennifer has given the house to Beauty, her maid (Niles’s second incarnation), for saving her husband’s soul, seems unnecessary and robs the previous scene, which ends with Jennifer’s plea for her husband’s forgiveness, of some of its power; it is clear that redemption for the dying policeman is what is desired, and it is clear by this point that we have witnessed Beauty’s empowerment, so this seems superfluous and emphasizes the writer’s distance from the subject matter, which has not been in evidence for much of the play. However, in a small space with a small cast, Adshead has provided a powerful reminder of female involvement in a great historical injustice, as well as indicating the possible female role in atonement for it.

by Tom Scruton