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Chuma Sopotela in a scene from Karoo Moose |
Moose on the loose in South African fairytale
KARRO MOOSE
Tricycle Theatre
WHY travel the world when you can visit Kilburn?
Having transported audiences to Afghanistan earlier this year with an acclaimed series of plays on that fractious land, the ever-inventive Tricycle is now showcasing two plays from South Africa. The first of these, Karoo Moose, is colourful but ultimately disappointing. A coming of age tale, it stars Chuma Sopotela as Thozama, a 15-year-old girl whose pisshead dad sells her to a local gangster. She falls pregnant, but the poor girl is so uneducated she doesn’t even know which part of her body the baby will emerge from.
Meanwhile, a wild creature is at large in the village. Children swear it is a moose that eats dogs; adults deny it exists. When Thozama kills it and eats its flesh, she is transformed from a shy and helpless child into a headstrong, quick-witted adult.
Sopotela is by far the best actor in this play, possessing natural charm and grace befitting her character. The other performers seem clunky in their delivery, and it is hard to avoid the impression, given by their confident drumming during the musical interludes, that these performers are musicians first and foremost.
The singing and the dance sequences are enjoyable, however, and come closest to achieving the mesmeric, magical realist quality the playwright, Lara Foot Newton, aims for in her script.
But such fun does not compensate enough for this play’s flaws. These basically boil down to too much talking and not enough action. For a self-styled fairy tale, the characters in Karoo Moose spend too long locked in discussions that would have a child nodding off in no time. They also have an annoying habit of blurting out sentences in their tribal language before falling about laughing at a joke received in silence by the audience, thus adding to the general impression that there is always something being kept back.
Until July 11
020 7328 1000 |
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