Die Krismis van Map Jacobs. By Adam Small. Directed by David Kramer. With Chisto Davids, Euodia Samson, Ivan Abrahams, Andre Samuels, Shameelah Ishmael, Jackie vna der Heever, David Johnson and others. Designed by Alfred Rietman, lighting by Faseer Sardien and costumes by Ilka Louw. At the Artscape Theatre until February 13. Marianne Thamm

One hopes that the high-school learners who flock to the Artcape Theatre to see this stage adaptation of the Adam Small setwork, “Die Krismis van Map Jacobs”, will be made aware of the history of the very theatre in which it is being performed.

In 1974 the playwright boycotted the opening night of another of his now famous stage works, Kanna hy kô hystoe, because only white people were allowed in the theatre named then after the then National Party administrator of the Cape, Nico Malan.

The post-democratic literary or artistic excavation of how apartheid irrevocably touched and changed the lives of coloured people in Cape Town is an ongoing one.  While apartheid era poets, artists, playwrights and authors like James Matthews, Arthur Nortje, Alex la Guma, Richard Rive, Peter Clarke and others certainly found an audience, post-apartheid voices exploring coloured experience, particularly on stage, are more muted.  Except of course when it comes to comedy.

In the 1980s, David Kramer and Taliep Petersen, employed the genre of the musical to revisit the wounds of forced removals, the Group Areas Act, job reservation and The Immorality Act.  It was, at the time, an appropriate vehicle as communities still reeling from the dislocation and exclusion from much of what passed for “mainstream ordinary life” needed the light “entertaining” touch of the musical to reflect this history. The music somehow contained and boundaried the pain and the loss.

Adam Small wrote this play story about a vicious gang leader who finds redemption in 1979. The simple story takes place against the backdrop of the forced removal of coloured people from various established suburbs to the barren Cape Flats. From this perspective it is an important story that warrants telling and retelling.

In his director’s note Kramer explains that he has shifted the emphasis from the impact of forced removals to underlying themes of forgiveness and redemption that underpin the author’s story. Kramer explains also that he has rearranged scenes and interrupted the author’s original narrative so that younger audiences with their presumably shorter attention spans might be captivated by it. Kramer also says he has deliberately chosen to avoid realistic décor and has included the use of music to facilitate the shifting of scenes.

Do Kramer’s choices work?

Yes and no.

I had not read the text and had no idea of the plot. And while one understands that a linear telling is not necessarily always the most appropriate in the theatre, the story here seemed initially too fractured and episodic.

The first scene between Mr Carvenellis (Andre Samuels) and his daughter Blanchie (Shameelah Ishmael) and which is meant to catapult you into this bleak world was, on opening night, stilted, laboured and little too melodramatic. This seems to set the tone for the following few scenes and it is only about a quarter of the way through that the play and the players seem to take off.

The Artscape Theatre is a cavernous and unforgiving space. It requires tremendous stage presence from the performers. Unfortunately some in the cast attempted to overcome this chasm by overacting. There was often very little range, characters went from reserved to hysterical without giving the audience an opportunity to move with them.

The star of the show is Christo Davids. Although he is slight and hardly looks like the hardened gang leader he is meant to be, his performance was convincing and moving.  David Johnson brought measured dollops of rage and hope as the character Mr La Guma who refuses to accept that he (as well as the rest of the community) have been “bulldozed out of our history”.

Kramer’s choice of music brings an added dimension of melancholy and context and certainly does help to help the narrative along. The clever set, while at first overwhelming, works well to create a sense of isolation and imprisonment.

This is a partially successful staging of a very vital part of this city’s ongoing search to extract meaning from the fractured shards of the past.

ends