THE YEAR OF THE BICYCLE
DIRECTOR: Joanna Evans
CAST: Aphiwe Livi, Amy Louise Wilson
VENUE: Theatre Arts Admin Collective, Methodist Church Hall, cnr Milton and Wesley roads, Observatory
UNTIL: July 27
RATING: ***
BITTERSWEET, this inspired bit of off-beat theatre will appeal to adults and teens alike.
It tells of an encounter between two grown-ups who met as children – with both narratives unfolding at the same time.
(The Year of the Bicycle was commissioned by the National Arts Festival after Joanna Evans won Most Promising Student Director at last year’s festival and won a Silver at the Standard Bank Ovation Award at this year’s festival.)
1997 was a time of Tazos, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and believing in the possibility of unpowered flight for Amelia (Wilson) and Andile (Livi) back in the Republic of Hout Bay.
The two bonded over riding bicycles, but the friendship they built up over a year couldn’t survive this strange place which conspired to keep them apart.
Ten years later the two’s minds have become entangled for some reason – which is all the more weird as you start to realise that they have each grown up into rather lonely young adults.
Wilson and Livi merrily embrace the wondrous world of child’s play to create two uninhibited, resourceful children.
They ride bicycles and somersault backwards with gleeful abandon, with Wilson contorting her body into painful looking positions when she brings herself into the now of 2007.
Andile likes playing at Amelia’s place because she wholeheartedly embraces the idea of imaginative play, something his township friends don’t understand about him. But, being an only child, Amelia has trouble with the concept of sharing, an outlook Andile cannot fathom.
When they flit back to the past, the dialogue elicits the most laughter.
Back in the now it’s more serious as Andile tries to make sense of this weird, dark place in which he finds himself, trying to connect with this familiar person he finds there.
Staging is minimal, with glass light jars and red wool becoming a bulwark against the gathering dark as well as the thread leading back to the beginning.
Evans has chosen to concentrate more on what happened when the two were children with the eventual denouement of present circum- stances happening quite quickly – much as Mike van Graan’s Rainbow Scars rushed through its ending.
Yet this denouement is the most compelling part of the play because this is when the emotions are at their rawest and least naive.
I’m looking forward to this director/writer exploring the now because her innovative staging which makes much of little says her imagination is going to take her far.