AS A WORKING mother of three children, director Leila Henriques has a certain amount of sympathy for the character in the drama, The List.
Played by Susan Danford, the character is also a mother trying to juggle various responsibilities, who makes lists to keep a handle on what needs doing.
Henriques isn’t quite the inveterate list maker that the character is though and went off to the bookshop to do some research about lists, coming away more confused than ever.
“It just never ends, lists for how to get ahead, notebooks on when to have sex, how to pack. Keep calm and make a list. Lists are sexy,” said the 43-year-old in an interview at the Baxter Theatre.
Herself an actress, writer with Irene Stephanou she co-wrote The World in an Orange – Exploring the work of Barney Simon) and Wits teacher (where she directed Yerma, Road, and Midwinter and last year the collaboration with New York University, Mike van Graan’s Iago’s Last Dance and Red Shoes) Henriques was specifically commissioned to direct The List’s South African premiere in Cape Town.
Written by Quebec-born Jennifer Tremblay, The List has been translated by Canadian dramaturg Shelley Tepperman, who retained much of the original’s poetry.
The play’s contemporary feel was the ultimate drawcard for Henriques who described the one-hour drama as a modern day counterpart to what Henrik Ibsen did when he explored 19th century marriage in A Doll’s House.
“What’s extraordinary is that it speaks to the contemporary woman. I immediately understood it, the experience of having small children and this quest for perfection.
“It’s quite a taboo topic, the discussion around motherhood, the schism it creates. People might not want to consider that it’s actually quite hard, motherhood,” she said.
The play also explores differences in economic status and access between people in cities and rural areas.
Henriques has kept the original Canadian rural setting with its references to snow, because “it’s so modern, you don’t really need to do much”.
“It’s got such a rhythm to it, you don’t want to mess with it, but it’s not geographically bound.”
About the character: “She’s trying to control her world and she makes these lists, but she’s a dreamy, longing for a beach in Cuba, ‘I want to be a tree on the Champs Elysees’ kind of person. What keeps her grounded is these lists. But these lists are also what stop her from connecting to the people.”
She describes Danford – in her first Baxter outing in four years since the critically acclaimed I, Claudia – as very subtle in her performance: “What’s extraordinary is how she lifts the ordinary experiences and reorganises them around the huge issues.”
• The List is on at the Baxter Golden Arrow Studio from April 11 to May 4 at 7pm. Tickets range from R110 to R150. Book through Computicket.