Inconsistent performances don't detract from the canny writing in Run of the Mill Theater's production of Athol Fugard's 1972 Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act under the direction of Jenny Tibbels. The legal context of the play's germinating seed isn't as profoundly reprehensible now as it was then--South Africa's Immorality Act of 1950 made interracial sexual relationships illegal (it was repealed in 1985)--but the interpersonal and psychological layers of public and private behaviors remain as tender to the touch as a fresh bruise. And Fugard's practically forensic investigation of a relationship cuts through those layers with an unforgiving probity.
Statements opens on a darkly lit room in which a man and a woman roll around the floor in obvious playful intimacy. She muses aloud about something quotidian while he caresses her slip-clad body. He runs through some passing observations while comfortably clad in nothing but briefs, a white undershirt, and socks. They laugh and talk and roll around some more and move around the room with a candid familiarity. He's black. She's white.
Although Baltimore 2006 isn't exactly a paragon of racial harmony, the sight of a black man and a white woman is probably not as indelibly loaded as it was in the 1970s. (In the original 1974 London production, the lovers were nude.) Still, it's to Fugard's uncanny credit that he assuages whatever visual shock you may feel by seeing a black man and white woman so inclined with seemingly throwaway conversation. He talks of evolution and history, which turns to their own history and evolution. They met each other about a year previous, the affair organically starting at some point after that. In fact, their almost meandering conversation continues for enough time that you start to wonder just where this almost inconsequential scene is headed and why won't it just get a move on already.
And then they hear a noise, and like startled animals he lunges for his clothes scattered on the floor and she covers herself with a blanket. After a brief eternity in total silence, they start talking again, but their vocal chords sound banded by fear. Slowly, they probe the difficulties of their relationship. He, Errol Philander (Corin B. Self), is a principal at a school who feels shame that he has to sneak away from his wife and family in order to see her. She, Frieda Joubert (Courtney Weber), is a librarian, in whose office the pair conduct their adulterous tryst. They both come close to admitting that there are innumerable reasons why they should stop but don't, chief among them the unspoken fear of being found out--which is exactly what happens when Detective Sgt. J. du Preez (a spot-on Chris Graybill) barges into the dark office and arrests them.
Statements' entire opening sets up this abrupt intrusion, a photographer's unforgiving lens capturing the scene in a series of choreographed light flashes and frozen poses. And from here on out the play unfolds like a rude interrogation, Self and Weber isolated by spotlights as they each talk about their affair.
What Statements offers a 21st-century audience is a disturbingly prescient reminder of the divide between public and private lives. Philander is a confident, intelligent thinker when with Joubert alone, a reticent submissive once discovered--presumably the appropriate demeanor assigned him by societal roles. Although six years his senior, Joubert is practically girlish and shy when in Philander's arms, becoming a verbally athletic respondent once the interrogation lights are focused on her. It's a dramatically precarious and subtle touch, but the entire reason to stage this play today: Even sincere and loving human relationships become perhaps irrevocably damaged when peopled are forced to look at themselves through the blindered eyes of a governing body that assumes it knows best and is willing to enforce that hubris upon others.
It's a subtlety that requires some on-point personality shifts from the cast, which Self and Weber achieve to some degree. What's odd is that neither has a problem with what you'd assume to be the heavy lifting--the emotionally charged scenes and confrontations. Give these two intellectually demanding material and mouthfuls of dialogue and watch them go, but leave them to act natural and they looked a little apprehensive and tentative. At a few moments early on mundane pauses and fumbles with simple lines felt more like adrift performances, not the low-key calm of two people at ease with one another.
Nevertheless, it takes guts to stage a South African play festival during December, and Run of the Mill has boldly mounted two emotionally demanding plays--Sizwe Bansi Is Dead continues its run later this month--that have to be a hard sell during the time of traditional, cutesy, and/or sarcastic holiday fare. You don't check out Fugard's 1970s output for human uplift, but if you're looking for a theater company willing to bite off more than it can chew, don't miss.
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