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THEATRE
 Freak
Country
Venue: Baxter Theatre, Main Rd, Rondebosch. Tel: (021) 680 3989.
Time: Mon - Sat at 8:00pm
Price: R80 - R120
Performances: 10 - 28 Feb 2009
Genre: Comedy
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When does a free country become exactly the opposite? How
long does it take for those in power to turn paranoid? What if you pushed
your luck with these people in just such a place? Freedom‘s just another
word…”
Find the answers to these questions in South African
playwright Paul Slabolepszy’s dark comedy and thriller Freak Country,
directed by Charmaine Weir-Smith and starring Antony Coleman, Jerry
Mofokeng and Peter Mashigo.
Widely regarded as one of South Africa’s most prolific and
popular playwrights, Slabolepszy has written 33 plays in the last 30
years. This is his first thriller and has been described as contemporary,
edgy, entertaining and brutally honest.
“Travel is not getting any easier,” says Slabolepszy.
“Freaky experiences in the customs offices of countries all around the
globe are becoming the norm rather than the exception. These encounters
are even more unsettling when the exotic places we visit are run by
dictators. This is a ‘what if’ story. It could happen to anyone.”
Award-winning director, actress and
writer Weir-Smith explains, “It is a piece that pushes psychological and
physical boundaries and raises many issues, particularly the issue of
freedom. In Paul’s inimitable way, he has taken the characters of this
piece on a rather unexpected ride. It’s a journey that is filled with
humour, pathos and riveting moments of truth.” Sarah Roberts is
responsible for design, with lighting by Wesley France.
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Antony Coleman plays Aaron Blakely, a young South African
actor traveling to the Comores to play a bit-part in an international war
film, who finds himself in a potentially highly dangerous situation when
the plane on which he is travelling stops over in an unnamed African
country, somewhere to the north.
His biggest mistake is that he ends up drinking too much on
the flight and in this spirit he completes his official “in-transit” forms
with great comic relief, which ultimately leads to devastating
consequences. He is held captive in a dingy office by a single guard named
Ndlovu (played by Peter Mashigo). His dangerously not-so-funny jokes
invoke deep suspicion as matters take a turn for the worse with the
arrival of Colonel Moyanga (Jerry Mofokeng), a Special Forces customs
official with a seriously bad attitude
The fact that Aaron has a pseudonym (his stage name), the
fact that he has documentation outlining planned attacks of sabotage (his
film script), plus the fact that his ancestral links with the country are
strong (he was born there), have placed the actor in a potentially highly
dangerous situation. Tensions run high and speculation is rife - is he a
spy, or possibly a mercenary or perhaps a lone assassin?
Throughout his interrogation – during which time Aaron’s
initial flight has continued on its journey – the actor finds himself
getting deeper and deeper into a hole from which he may never emerge.
‘Operation Wildfire’ is not at all the action-adventure Aaron Blakely
expected in his wildest imaginings.
Who needs the movies when real life becomes a roller coaster
ride to hell and back in this three-hander which is loaded and injected
with a healthy dose of intrigue and dark humour.
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