This blunt two-hander, based on stories from inmates of Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated, feels clumsy now. But it gets a simple revival from Alex Brown, winner of the James Menzies-Kitchin award for young directors. Jimmy Akingbola and Daniel Poyser play prisoners who share the forenames of Winston Ntshona and John Kani, the great, apartheid-era actors who devised the play with writer Athol Fugard and first performed it in 1973.
Sadly, actorliness dominates the narrative. Fantasies of revenge, freedom or family take a back seat to preparations for a jailhouse rendering of Antigone, complete with political allegory and cross-dressing tittering. Although there’s lots of exposition, the characters don’t feel rounded.
What comes across powerfully is the tedium of prison life, where suppressed rage at one’s captors can squirt out over a cellmate who drops a washrag or, worse, secures an early release. Once through the opening sand-shovelling, Akingbola and Poyser are likeable performers who switch in a second from bone-deep weariness to exuberant clowning. Akingbola’s surliness is particularly well done. Brown stages the action on a sand-stranded platform under harsh light. Even if the play seems dated, it reminds us that although apartheid may have gone, officially at least, it shouldn’t be forgotten.
Until November 30 (youngvic.org, 020 7922 2922)
