NORMALITY

Review by Margaret von Klemperer of production at Hilton Festival 2010. (Courtesy of The Witness)

It is a risk to put an uncomfortable subject like the interaction between a disabled person and the world on a stage. Audiences tend to shy away. Here, Pedro Kruger is Alex, a man crippled by Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis and he tells, with humour and anger, of his life. For me, the discomfort of the subject was exacerbated by the opening scene of the devil spinning the wheel of fortune at Alex’s birth; it gets things off on the wrong foot.

But once past that – the question of fate, or God, or fault – there are some fine moments: Alex in a rave club; Alex buying a Speedo to go to the beach with his girlfriend; Alex and his aunt looking for a parking bay. The piece, which was originally scripted in Afrikaans, was a hit in this translation on the Edinburgh Fringe, and is ultimately carried by its humour and the strength of Kruger’s performance which takes his audience along with him, rooting for Alex. - Margaret von Klemperer

”Normality” is directed by Shirley Ellis with text and lyrics by Hennie van Greunen and music by Pedro Kruger