The Table swirls emotion, humour

By Gregory Austin Nwakunor

OVER the years, Italians have developed their own food and eating culture. To them, food brings together friends and families after a hard day’s work in the office. They are never in a hurry to gobble down their food or get back to work.

  When Italians sit down to eat, they literally forget about the world. They eat in a relaxed and slow paced atmosphere, with families getting the chance to bond with one another.

 In The Table, Sylvaine Strike, one of South Africa’s best theatre directors, collaborates with the dramaturge Craig Higginson, to create a slice of a family dinner ala Italian way.

  The play journeys into the heart of a family redefined by the South African environment — the cumulative effect of horror, human pains and similar experiences from every corner of the country that is shared — which albeit, have made people comfortable and aspiring to move forward with their lives.

  The 105-minute play opens with a gypsy-dressed woman stepping into the spot light and circling a piece of wood while butterflies dance around her, as Yiddish music plays at the background.

  Suddenly, siren blares, which interrupts the music, and the audience is transported to a time past — Eastern Europe during World War II.
  Moments later, through a flash forward technique, the audience is ushered into another reality: the home of a Jewish South Africa family.

  It has been a year since the death of the family patriarch and a mother prepares for her children's homecoming and for the ceremonious unveiling of their father's tombstone.       

  The children, products of the horrors of the past, who truth and reconciliation have given graceful space to subsist, re-unite with their mothers — Annabel Linder, who plays the matriarch, Sara, her friend and employee, Flora, played by Janet Hampton Carpede — over a Friday night meal.

  Sara and Flora make sure that everything is perfect for the celebratory dinner to welcome the children including Flora’s New York-based lawyer daughter, Amoneo, played by Khabonina Qubeka home.

  First to arrive home is the coughing eldest son, Daniel (Brian Webber). The fussy hypochondriac has just been chucked out by his wife and is still dealing with guilt surrounding his father death.

  Then comes Ruth (Karin van der Laag), the overeating but good-humoured lady. Ruth is the middle sibling who has issues with fat, which are exacerbated by her relationship with Amoneo, who she resents for being much slimmer, prettier and more successful.

  Levi (William Harding), the youngest, can hardly wait for Amoneo to arrive. He plans to reveal his lifelong crush and declare his undying love for her.

  Once together, the three siblings reenact a childhood game that leaves them rolling on the floor.

 Amoneo’s return to the family table stirs Ruth’s childhood resentments towards her.

  With the children now around, the dinner ceremony can begin the same way no Italian dinner is eaten without all the guests around.

  But with emotions swirling around the dining room before the first course is served, it’s little wonder that when the food arrives no one can digest it.

  The wine goblet is passed and the family, including Amoneo, seems to be ready for a feeling that is euphoric and ephemeral.

  Along with each course comes greater honesty and insight into the hidden anguishes of each character. Everyone harbours a secret pain: Love, jealousy, infidelity and remorse emerge and this family will never be the same after dinner.
  The Table gives a fresh breath to familiar feuds in a manner that is not only visually appealing, but also emotionally consuming and gripping.

  It captures all the begrudging sentiment of family life as it unfolds around a meal. Though the story is told rather comically, the message herein expressed is serious.

  To create the play, which evolved from a workshop, Strike goes into a creative reconstruction of history —a true Holocaust survival story with direct links to her husband’s family.

  A table was buried during the war, which the only survivor of the family, unearthed after the horror and brought to Israel, where one of Chen’s grannies lives.

  The cast all play their parts well, and their dialogue gives the audience humour, amusing bickering, some emotional ups and downs and plenty to watch as the disastrous dinner unfolds.

  Between the two creators of the play, which had its premiere at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, there’s a synergy of word and visuals. Strike works with visual content, while Higginson plays mainly with words.

  More importantly, to create an aesthetically pleasing drama that is not devoid of colour, the director, Strike, uses a lot of space and movement.

  Every space of the Laager Theatre arena is deployed. Even the table. There’s a clever use of mime in the eating scenes and, perhaps, the various coming and goings to create the feeling that nobody is sure of how he or she fits in or what is felt about the others.

  Strike and Higginson expand the presentation of their story by adding mime, a little dance and some symbolic scenes to try to augment the humour and pathos with deeper meaning such as the symbolism of plants being carried, chairs being piled high on the table and actors floating on and off in various directions

  The clarinetist Sam Sklair — Annabel’s husband — in collaboration with trombonist Dan Selsick, creates the seventh cast member of the play, being the music.

    Significance of the Yiddish music cannot be under-emphasised. It helped in the achievement of the total theatre that the director aimed at.

 But more than the Jewish elements, it’s about family dynamics. The play ends on a happy note, with a hope for the future in spite of the blighted past.