★★★★

“Innocence and playfulness mingle with a satire that bites when we least expect it”

Guleraana Mir’s beautifully constructed short play, “Santi and Naz”, is a deceptively innocent and poetic account of an enduring friendship between two young women who grew up in pre-partition India. They are living in an unnamed village, soon to be split in two by new borders that sliced through the lives of millions of unsettled people. The blood spilled still stains the ground decades later. The play, however, avoids making any political commentary on the consequences of (and widespread opposition to) partition. Instead, it zooms in on the very personal effects. And by looking at the world through childish eyes, it becomes more emotively powerful.

Nehru’s (in)famous ‘Tryst with Destiny’ address opens the play, his crackling voiceover heralding the ‘stroke of the midnight hour’. As his words fall and fracture onto a darkened stage, Santi (Aiyana Bartlett) is writing a letter, destined never to be delivered, to childhood friend Naz (Farah Ashraf). The intimacy is ingrained in her memories. Laura Howard’s evocative lighting shifts to warmer shades and we find Santi and Naz years earlier, playing games, dancing, teasing and swooning over the local heartthrob. It is a coming-of-age story whose lightness belies the darkness lurking beneath. Over time that darkness spreads like a shadow between them – a representation of the cultural changes that force them apart. The performances are undeniably strong throughout: Bartlett’s vulnerable and romantic Santi seeking shelter in books and writing, while Ashraf’s more defiant Naz seeks to defy the arranged marriage that threatens her dreams of happiness.

Mir’s script (co-written with afshan d’souza-lodhi) has a natural flow, accentuated by the gorgeous chemistry between the two performers. Innocence and playfulness mingle with a satire that bites when we least expect it. Occasionally the writing confuses, and we are unsure whether there is a sexual undertone to their friendship; but we never doubt the resilience and indestructible strength of their connection. A connection that remains even when separated. Bartlett and Ashraf evocatively present a personal tragedy that mirrors the political one. It skirts around it at times and occasionally overlooks its Western audience, but ultimately it does shine a light on an often-misunderstood period of history.

It is, unfortunately, a universal story. Santi is Sikh and Naz is Muslim; a fact that is neither here nor there for them. Until the British withdrawal. The pair interject their dialogue with uncannily accurate impersonations of the key figures – such as Gandhi and Mountbatten – the latter especially whose actions and decisions affected the lives of those he had little connection with or knowledge about. The weight of the events ‘forces the air from our lungs’ as Naz points out. ‘I no longer know where my people are’.

Poignantly, we come full cycle for the play’s conclusion. Separated on the stage by a wedge of black light, the two characters are back where they started. Looking back, they are both yearning for the other. A friendship divided, a culture split apart, and a country thrown into two opposing sides. The line is drawn. But we are pulled back into the deeply personal: two people who refuse to see their differences. A heartfelt tale of innocence and experience that earns, and deserves, our undivided attention.

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.

SANTI & NAZ

Soho Theatre

★★★★

“Innocence and playfulness mingle with a satire that bites when we least expect it”

SANTI & NAZ

Soho Theatre

Reviewed on 23rd January 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Paul Blakemore

Previously reviewed at this venue:

SANTI & NAZ

SANTI & NAZ

SANTI & NAZ

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