Kyla Davis gives a marvellous and very
physical performance. (Review by Keith Millar)
Beware of the spinster! Visit her at your
own peril! She is outrageous, irreverent and absolutely inappropriate.
Seen at last week’s Musho! Festival, Kyla
Davis’s new play, The Spinster, is
all these things. It is also very funny, insightful and, in its own way, quite
sad.
The spinster is a woman who chooses to defy
convention. She travelled the world and took lovers at every stop. Her main motivation
in life is to have fun, avoid commitment and experience everything the world has
to offer. But now, past her prime and with all her friends settled down with
husbands and children, she finds herself living a lonely and isolated existence
surrounded by her mementos and memories.
Kyla Davis gives a marvellous and very
physical performance as this disgruntled woman who is trying hard to justify
the life style she has lived. The only problem I had is that Kyla looks too
young for the role of the spinster. This is not an indictment on her
performance - which really was very good - it is just that I struggled to
reconcile a young attractive face playing what should have been a bit of an old
slag.
Kyla is also superb acting out other
aspects of the life she has missed. In recounting her relationship with “the
one she shouldn’t have got away” she engages in a very physical and impressive
bout with a punching bag. As the housewife she could have been, she is hilarious
as - with phone to her ear - she tries to juggle her cooking, cleaning and
child-minding all at once. And there is a poignant moment as she becomes a
bubbly teenage girl whose world is her oyster and all her life is before her.
A very nice innovation at last night’s
production was the provision of two sign language translators to cater for a
large group of deaf audience members.
The
Spinster was written and performed Kyla Davis and
directed by James Cairns. For more details about the Musho! Festival, visit www.mushofestival.co.za
– Keith Millar
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