A GOOD HOUSE

Royal Court

★★★★

“The performances and the dynamics are gripping”

The time is now. The setting is the evocatively named small town of Stillwater which, we are told is located ‘wherever that may be’. Although it is clear we are in South Africa. But switch the accents and we could be anywhere in the world; from the Redneck belt of the Southern US to a provincial English backwater. The poignancy that oozes from Amy Jephta’s one act play, “A Good House”, is universal. The smalltown sensibilities that fester unchecked on a microscope slide are magnified into a thrilling and acerbic dissection of community politics. Bitter, sweet, dangerous and funny; it challenges and twists our expectations.

Sihle (Sifiso Mazibuko) and Bonolo (Mimî M Khayisa) are new to the area. They are getting to know relative old timers Chris (Scott Sparrow) and Lynette (Olivia Darnley). It is, in fact, two years since Sihle and Bonolo moved to the neighbourhood: a telling fact. A brief, highly charged prologue precedes the opening scenes in which Sihle and Chris first meet each other under different circumstances. It sets up the dynamics and highlights the innate and institutionalised racism that is embedded in the tarmac of the residents’ matching driveways. We think we are in Mike Leigh territory for a moment. Wine is slowly (alas too slowly) poured and polite conversation trips over awkward faux pas. But Jephta pulls it out by the scruff of the neck, while Nancy Medina’s direction cracks the whip, drives out the Pinteresque pauses and sends it galloping off through the overlapping dialogue.

Sparrow’s Chris is clumsily ‘right on’ and obsequious in the extreme. We quickly know that he can’t be trusted. Similarly, Darnley’s over-eager Lynette is a Cape Town Sloane Ranger – if such a thing exists. Sihle and Bonolo have sussed them out. A freeze-frame device intermittently sets certain characters in suspended animation while the others are free to vent the true feelings that lie hidden beneath the chit chat. The performances and the dynamics are gripping. Mazibuko fills the stage with the imposing figure of Sihle, seemingly – and only initially – compliant with the reactions provoked by his skin colour and background. Khayisa’s portrayal of the no-nonsense Bonolo is a master stroke that surprises us with some refreshingly unexpected views on society and race.

In their suburban community, a mysterious shack has sprung up – the inhabitants nowhere to be seen. Speculation abounds as to who is responsible for this eyesore, and with this speculation the petty bigotry feeds on itself and multiplies. Andrew (Kai Luke Brummer) and Jess (Robyn Rainsford) are the couple most affected, the shack being on their doorstep. Brummer and Rainsford are a perfect match depicting the ‘perfect suburban couple’ – in other words gauche and full of gaffes, embarrassing indiscretions, bigotry and fanaticism.

The shack, although a real structure, is also clearly an allegory. The anonymity of its occupants is seen as being dangerous. Fear abounds, naturally. The writing and the performances ridicule and make a mockery of it all, quite rightly, but also highlight the conflicts and the tensions. The petty prejudices cut far deeper than overt racism. We get a real sense of the institutionalised racism that breeds in these small-town minds that, if left untended, can grow like knotweed.

“A Good House” is a very modern satire. Its façade is a comedy but behind its closed doors lies quite a different story. If I were you, I’d think twice about borrowing a cup of sugar in Stillwater. But I wouldn’t think twice about seeing the play. Just be prepared to find splinters of glass mixed in with the sugar.

A GOOD HOUSE

Royal Court

Reviewed on 17th January 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Camilla Greenwell

A GOOD HOUSE

Autoreverse

Battersea Arts Centre

Reviewed – 5th February 2020

★★★★

“the raw emotions being experienced by Cordeu as she performs are something that we can tune into whoever and wherever we may be”

The importance of remembering – and forgetting – and identifying where you truly call your home are key themes in a fascinating and powerful audio-visual theatrical experience at Battersea Arts Centre as part of an impressive Going Global spring season.

As much a general plea to listen to the stories of our forebears as it is a personal journey through her family’s life in South America (and, indeed, the tale of the country itself), Florencia Cordeu has created a captivating piece of performance art in “Autoreverse.”

Using extracts from cassette tapes stored at her family home in Chile, Cordeu learns about the past and rediscovers her present as she reflects on what she hears on the tapes, featuring voices of various family members who escaped the cruel Argentinian regime in the 1970s but were forced apart as a result.

An array of cassette players in a living room are used to play the various tapes (all credit to Elena Pena at the sound desk for making this so realistic), which stirs recollections of growing up, and evokes memories of a bygone age, feelings of safety and home.

The set (Rajha Shakiry) is so convincing the audience feels it has mistakenly wandered into someone’s apartment rather than into a performance in the Centre’s Members’ Bar.

What is poignant is that to anyone else these recordings mean little – as Cordeu herself admits they “capture the banal, the everyday.” But we soon come to realise the importance of these tapes – love letters between family members living apart which capture moments in time to be played on other days in other places.

Director Omar Elerian allows the personal essence of the story to develop and flow naturally as Cordeu shares centre stage with the voices of the past, though references to the analogue reality of old cassette tapes (which have a limited life span) seem odd when it is clear that CDs or digitally recorded versions of the tapes are being played.

But it is easy to look beyond that as we picture a natural flow of thoughts and images falling onto the iron oxide of the tape, which allows a sense of “being there while not being there and seeing things with the ears.”

Not only do the recordings – and, by extension, the show – attempt to rescue and make sense of everyday life but serve a purpose of remembering what may have otherwise been forgotten.

A recurring motif of a tree – Cordeu brings on a bonsai, which she wishes could be planted outside rather than sitting on a table in a pot to allow it to grow freely and unconstrained – serves as a significant metaphor. She tends it with the notion that it is important to try to keep things alive, as important for plants as it is for memories.

With the first recording played serving as a narrative (the performer recorded it in her flat last year) there’s an intriguing question posed about looking to the future and being what you want to be – a publicity image for the production of a little girl dressed as Wonder Woman has relevance as the play continues.

The closing scene, which considers what is truly our home and how we build it up, adds depth to a show that is already thought-provoking.

The overall impact is touching, even where there’s a feeling another culture might find it difficult to share the experiences and fully understand the implication of all the memories. But the raw emotions being experienced by Cordeu as she performs are something that we can tune into whoever and wherever we may be.

A GOOD HOUSE

Royal Court

★★★★

“The performances and the dynamics are gripping”

A GOOD HOUSE

Royal Court

Reviewed on 17th January 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Camilla Greenwell

Previously reviewed at this venue:

A GOOD HOUSE

A GOOD HOUSE

A GOOD HOUSE

Battersea Arts Centre

Reviewed – 5th February 2020

★★★★

“the raw emotions being experienced by Cordeu as she performs are something that we can tune into whoever and wherever we may be”

The importance of remembering – and forgetting – and identifying where you truly call your home are key themes in a fascinating and powerful audio-visual theatrical experience at Battersea Arts Centre as part of an impressive Going Global spring season.

As much a general plea to listen to the stories of our forebears as it is a personal journey through her family’s life in South America (and, indeed, the tale of the country itself), Florencia Cordeu has created a captivating piece of performance art in “Autoreverse.”

An array of cassette players in a living room are used to play the various tapes (all credit to Elena Pena at the sound desk for making this so realistic), which stirs recollections of growing up, and evokes memories of a bygone age, feelings of safety and home.

The set (Rajha Shakiry) is so convincing the audience feels it has mistakenly wandered into someone’s apartment rather than into a performance in the Centre’s Members’ Bar.

But it is easy to look beyond that as we picture a natural flow of thoughts and images falling onto the iron oxide of the tape, which allows a sense of “being there while not being there and seeing things with the ears.”

Not only do the recordings – and, by extension, the show – attempt to rescue and make sense of everyday life but serve a purpose of remembering what may have otherwise been forgotten.

The closing scene, which considers what is truly our home and how we build it up, adds depth to a show that is already thought-provoking.

Reviewed by David Guest

Photography by Helen Murray

Autoreverse

Battersea Arts Centre until 22nd February

Previously reviewed at this venue: