OBSERVER: Destiny by MTC
The challenge for Kirsty Marillier in setting her play Destiny in 1976 apartheid South Africa is to say something new.
The linear progression of the work has Della Math (Kirsty Marillier) caring for her widowed father Cliff (Patrick Willams) and immature brother Rocky (Gaz Dutlow).
The return of her high school boyfriend, Ezra Jones (Barry Conrad) complicates matters domestically but hints at political upheaval beyond the home.
The dramatic conflict seems to be unevenly divided between these two realms without truly consolidating or examining just how divisive and insidious the apartheid regime actually was.
The arrival, late in the play of the policeman (John Sherman) is the clichéd menace we expect and the appearance of Mrs Jones (Clare Chihambakwe) brings further recriminations.
The cast are committed and their characters sustained. Director Zindzi Okenyo has managed to keep the pace moving in the one hour and fifty minute running time.
The set (Sophie Woodward) is impressive, a household interior and general store on two distinct levels. But there is little sense of the regime’s oppression which not even Cliff’s position in a company house really explains.
As a product of the MTC’s new work department, incorporating structural innovation or developing the dramatic tension of a central issue might have helped.
The master South African playwright Athol Fugard portrayed the human cost of the regime in Statements and, more recently, Trevor Noah’s memoir, Born a Crime, highlighted the systemic absurdity of the era and its aftermath.
These are the touchstones against which Marillier’s work will be compared. There are stories about the South African diaspora that are waiting to be explored which would take the conversation in a completely new direction and look at the ongoing repercussions of that time.
This play is more retrospective in nature with a naturalistic setting and a panoply of themes still to be explored.
Melbourne Theatre Company
Until September 13
Sumner Theatre Southbank
Review by David McLean
Pictured: Gaz Dutlow and Kirsty Marillier in Destiny. Photo: Pia Johnson