(David
Dennis as Abubaker Abrahams)
Review of production at the 2012 Witness
Hilton Arts Festival by Caroline Smart
Brothers
in Blood is playwright Mike van Graan at his best.
Set in Cape Town, it takes a scenario involving Muslim, Christian and Jewish men
and the challenges they face in co-existing with each other. Far from being a
racial/religious diatribe, the play takes a compelling look at the personal
lives of a father, a preacher and a doctor.
While there are dramatic vocal and physical
scenes on the prejudice front, there are also some well-handled and poignant moments
which the cast handle with skill and respect for the issues at hand.
The five members of the cast include David
Dennis as the devout Muslim Abubaker Abrahams, Aimee Valentine as his daughter
Leila and Harrison Makubalo as her friend Fadiel Suleiman. Then there’s Kurt
Egelhof as Lionel Fredericks, the Christian preacher whose vision is not always
shared by his community, and Brian Cohen as Conrad Kemp, the Jewish doctor, who
has his own problems.
Lighting and stage design is by the
award-winning Denis Hutchinson. The production is played out on a series of
platforms backed by a structure of chicken wire overlaid with newspaper pages.
Superbly directed by Greg Homann and
presented by ArtScape, Brothers In Blood
was one of my two choices for best drama production at the 2012 Witness Hilton
Arts Festival, the other being Delirium
which also featured the versatile David Dennis giving his usual
carefully-thought out and credible performance in a totally different role.
Brothers
in Blood has been translated into Italian and was
recently staged as a reading in Rome. It has also been optioned by a
Scandinavian theatre for production in Swedish next year. At the end of
November, van Graan’s Green Man Flashing
will premiere in Spanish in Buenos Aires. – Caroline Smart
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