BWW Reviews: Supple Writing and Sympathetic Performances in THE THINGS YOU LEFT BEHIND

THE THINGS YOU LEFT BEHIND, a collection of five monologues written by Jason Potgieter, has been on my radar for some time, but I have not been able to see it until this run of the piece at the Grahamstown Festival. Currently running at Princess Alice Hall as a part of the Cape Town Edge collective, the play has been around since at least 2010, where it ran at the Intimate Theatre in the Mother City. I wish I had seen the play back then so as to be able to see whether and how it has grown since those early days, because while the piece shows immense promise in its current form, it somehow does not quite achieve the impact it could have had.

Perhaps in articulating that criticism, I have put the cart before the horse. THE THINGS YOU LEFT BEHIND has a great deal to offer: supple writing, sympathetic performances and lucid direction. For its narrative, the play gathers the stories that surround the story of a young gay man whose boyfriend has ended their relationship. The young man throws himself in front of a car and the stories that are told are those of the people who were on the scene (a car guard, a paramedic and a drag queen) as well as those who are more directly involved with the young man himself (his mother and the ex-boyfriend).

The five monologues are all beautifully written, with each character's perspective on the central event and its unseen catalyst clearly articulated and filled with self-revelation. The things you leave behind, it seems, do not leave you behind. But the play as a whole lacks a definitive moment in which everything comes together. Finding that moment and the manner in which it can be achieved is where the challenge of writing a piece in this style is located. Potgieter needs to interrogate its absence for the play to achieve its full potential.

Potgieter himself plays three of the characters in the play: Erwin, the only white car guard in the city, who observes the lives those around him as he looks after his street of cars; Jake, the American ex-boyfriend whose defences of his culture have become something of a chip on his shoulder; and Delores, a drag queen who dispenses her unique take on the situations in which she has found herself with the joy of the best kind of raconteur. Potgieter is arresting on stage and transforms completely as he shifts from character to character. It is clear he knows these characters inside out and he brings each of them vividly to life.

The other two characters, the mother, who is dealing with the issues her son's coming out has left with her, and the medic, who was present on the scene of the accident and has to find her own way of dealing with the daily traumas of her profession, are played by Alicia McCormick. Her task is arguably more difficult than Potgieter's: the role of the mother calls for a realistic presence that McCormick is simply too young to contrive and you see her wrestling with the medic's rough candour. That said, her interpretation of both pieces is layered and meaty. Despite having to play almost a step too far against type, McCormick's talent is clear and she offers complex interpretations of the two parts.

Kim Kerfoot has directed THE THINGS YOU LEFT BEHIND with a gentle and sensitive hand. He has tapped into the testimonial nature of the piece, which means that his cast really needs to keep themselves on their toes as each monologue really is all about the characters, their words and the relationship each is playing with his or her invisible partner. A couple of basic set pieces aside, there is nothing behind which the actors can hide. But while Kerfoot's guidance in in shaping the Potgieter and McCormick's performances is well-nigh flawless, he could challenge the pair to connect more specifically with the implied audience of each of monologue as opposed to the real audience, the privileged flies on the wall in the private and public spaces in which the pieces are set. While the benefit of the style of this piece is that the actor-audience relationship can be manipulated to circumvent an hour of playing in profile, the theme of relationships is a key one here and what people say is mediated as much by who they are as by the person to whom they are speaking their words.

As a contemporary South African play, THE THINGS YOU LEFT BEHIND could have a great deal to offer to a wide cross-section of audiences. Potgieter's writing elevates the rather mundane affair of a break-up by allowing it to be a vehicle that offers insight into contemporary life, class and culture. With a climatic sequence that pulls all the threads of his play together and illuminates the thesis he puts forward in the play, this could be a top-drawer piece of theatre. Perhaps it will be by the time THE THINGS YOU LEFT BEHIND returns to the stage in its next iteration.

THE THINGS YOU LEFT BEHIND runs until 6 July at 16:30 daily in the Princess Alice Hall at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. Tickets can be booked at Computicket.

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