BWW Reviews: DIRTY WORDS Goes (Down) Like Gangbusters at the Kalk Bay Theatre

Every now and then, a piece of theatre comes along that could be described as a kind of gateway drug: a show that people will remember being incredibly entertaining and that might make them think that this business of going to the theatre is worth all the fuss. DIRTY WORDS is that kind of show. It offers contemporary audiences a respite from long days in a relentless world. It demands very little, only that you sit back, relax and enjoy its parody of sexual literature, its pastiche of burlesque skits, songs and strips, and its mix of high and low comedy.

DIRTY WORDS is a sketch based show written by Jon Keevy, who has contrived several hilarious episodes based around sexual attitudes and encounters for the show. Keevy's script is deft and witty, whether his parodic arrows take aim at erotic literature, anonymous internet chat rooms or foreign Lotharios. Barring one, the opening sexy-awkward dance piece that never quite finds its footing, the sketches go (down) like gangbusters. There are many belly laughs to be had here, which is rather the point. Along with co-director Jason Potgieter, Keevy has pitched the pieces to play tongue in cheek. DIRTY WORDS is raunchy, but not porny. If you arrive with the requisite sense of humour, DIRTY WORDS is not going to make you blush furiously in mixed company or squirm in your seat. It's good, clean fun - except that it's dirty.

The performers, Kim Kerfoot and Danieyella Rodin, shift neatly from sketch to sketch, he relying mostly on a coy, word-focused persona and she on a vixenish, physical one. There are times when they trade places, particularly in the side-splitting chat room sketch where they switch from character to character at lightning pace as well as in a gardening talk-show sequence that is riddled with double entendres. Nonetheless, Kerfoot and Rodin really capitalise on the good boy/bad girl dynamic that is set up right at the top of the show. Their delivery of a hook-up story - told in rhyming couplets, like the description of one of Roald Dahl's DIRTY BEASTS - is great fun, as is the final piece, an a cappella song in which Rodin provides some saucy vocals and Kerfoot the bass and percussion.

Designed to travel, DIRTY WORDS relies on a basic setup of blocks, props and costume pieces, which are used in the various sketches in the show. Lighting a show like this is difficult. Make it too dark, and things risk becoming seedy. Too much light washes things out a little. The design for DIRTY WORDS perhaps tends toward the latter, and could make use of clearer focus and lend more specific variations in mood and atmosphere from sketch to sketch to sketch.

DIRTY WORDS is the kind of show that works very well at a setting like the Kalk Bay Theatre and Restaurant, where it is currently playing, or the in the Upstairs Theatre at the Alexander Bar and Café or at the National Arts Festival, where it has had runs in the past, because it is the kind of show that relies as much on its own merits as it does on the social aspects of theatregoing, seen in partnership here with the restaurant and bar situated in the eaves of the old chapel building that houses the Kalk Bay Theatre. It is also the kind of show that will, at some point, have you grinning from ear to ear as the punchlines land and you recognise, in the onstage antics, a bit of yourself and your own insecurities about life behind closed doors. And hopefully, DIRTY WORDS will turn out to be the kind of show that functions as a gateway drug for the theatre rather than being the keeper of the keys, a show that draws in theatre newbies and makes them seek out further adventures on the stage.

DIRTY WORDS will run until 19 October at the Kalk Bay Theatre and Restaurant from Tuesday to Saturdays at 8.30pm with a Sunday matinee at 2.30pm. Tickets cost R120. On Tuesdays, there is a two-for-one special, with 2 tickets costing R120. Guests can enjoy a delicious supper, coffee and dessert upstairs in the restaurant, the patrons of which receive first choice of the unreserved seating in the theatre. Doors for the restaurant open at 6:30pm for dinner and at 12:30pm for lunch on Saturday and Sunday. Ticket bookings can be made at www.kalkbaytheatre.co.za and ticket and dinner reservations can be made on 079 361 8275 or in person at the theatre on Tuesdays to Saturdays from 3pm to 8.30pm.