Described as “an informative bite of physical theatre”, this new play by Nicholas Ellenbogen and Hilda Cronje is more like a tantalising nibble, being of less than one hour’s duration. It is, however, charged with such emotional intensity that it provides engrossing theatre which leaves the audience craving more.
The drama’s evolution keeps pace with the onset, development, climax and waning of this life-threatening disease contracted by a young female paediatrician volunteering for duty in an African country ravaged by the twin horrors of civil war and the Ebola epidemic.
The doctor, played by Hilda Cronje, makes the audience her confidante as she recounts her experiences since arriving in Africa. We hear of her reluctance to bathe with crocodiles in muddy water, her frustration with inadequate resources, her gradual dependence on her co-workers and her unexpected delight in discovering the natural beauty of the country she’s come to serve.
Most significant of all is her emotional involvement with the baby of a woman who’s died of Ebola… with predictable consequences.
All this is delivered in a charmingly French-accented speech suggestive of Médecins sans Frontières by Cronje, whose interpretation is convincingly sustained and underpinned by beguiling physicality from Kai Brummer and Amelia Vernede as the heavily gowned and masked nurses attending her throughout her illness.
The monologue is punctuated by episodes that remind the audience, sometimes graphically, of the speaker’s tenuous grasp on life – a darkly dramatic backdrop to the narrated action. Stylised portrayal of the situation in the small, claustrophobic space of the sickroom creates a strong sense of theatre and helps to distance the audience from the physiological horrors of bleeding, sweating and vomiting attendant on the disease.
At one point the action resolves itself into a grotesque pas de trois between nurses and patient, and the contrast between realism and fantasy is piquant.
Disturbing music, evocative lighting (much of it red), and the clinical whiteness of the minimalist set all play their part in creating the ambience of a primitive medical facility somewhere in hell, and Ellenbogen’s sure-handed direction keeps tedium at bay.
Full marks to Cronje for her grasp of character and expressive delivery; a lesser peformance would turn this into a semi-documentary piece of limited appeal.
The athleticism and energy of Vernede and Brummer add significantly to the visual impact of this short, dark play.