(Review
from the artSMart team covering the Witness Hilton Arts Festival which ran at
Hilton College from September 19 to 21)
(Judy Ditchfield &
Jose Domingos)
Skilfully performed and attractively presented, it is both
enjoyable and poignant. (Review by Margaret von Klemperer)
Directed by Greg Homann, this year’s Standard Bank Young
Artist Award winner for Theatre, and choreographed by Brandon Eilers le Riche, Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks is a good
piece of festival feel-good theatre. Not too profound, not too demanding, and
with plenty of witty one-liners for the two accomplished performers to deliver,
it makes for an enjoyable couple of hours.
Appearing in the Grindrod Bank Theatre, it was the 2014 Witness
Hilton Arts Festival’s Flagship Production.
Judy Ditchfield (great to see her back in her home town)
plays Lily Harrison, a widow of a certain age. Actually, it is a bit uncertain,
but you get the picture.
I would hate to give away all the sharp remarks for anyone
who is going to get a chance to see the play, but there is one I have to share:
“If you say your real age out loud, your face hears you.” Her late husband was
a South Carolina Baptist minister and she is a retired teacher, and one who the
audience soon sees would have been something of a tartar in the classroom. But
she is lonely, and signs up for the eponymous dance lessons, which are to be
given in her home.
Her dance teacher, Michael Minetti, arrives – an excellent
Jose Domingos – and the two immediately get off on the metaphorical wrong foot.
They lie to each other, and get caught out, their attitudes are often mutually
antagonistic and it is only in dance that it seems there will be any compatibility.
The dance scenes, which use clever lighting to effect the passage of time and
scene changes, are excellent, Ditchfield managing to portray an ageing woman
without diminishing her movement skills.
Slowly, the two develop a rapport off the dance floor as
well as on it. Michael begins to overcome Lily’s prejudices and break down her
defences and in the end, their deepest secrets are shared and their sadnesses
laid bare.
It is not a new idea: two lonely and apparently incompatible
people coming together and finding comfort and companionship. But skilfully
performed and attractively presented, it is both enjoyable and poignant. –
Margaret von Klemperer
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