{"id":4776,"date":"2022-06-27T18:57:35","date_gmt":"2022-06-27T17:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=4776"},"modified":"2022-06-27T18:57:36","modified_gmt":"2022-06-27T17:57:36","slug":"spanish-steps-last-laugh-at-the-bottom-of-the-ladder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=4776","title":{"rendered":"Spanish Steps: Last Laugh at the bottom of the ladder"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\nIf this play\nfeels like d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu, then you are exactly where you should be.\nSpanish Steps<\/em>\npits dreams and folly in such intimate proximity that it trips you\ninto a theatrical mirror of where your life could end up: locked in\nthe basement with a dreaded work-colleague, apparently. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nis humour with a spirit of sensitive pathos. A dramedy based on the\nexistential need to forgive one\u2019s predecessors of their failings\nand find the freedom to follow unique paths. It is a comedy of\nstanding still for 25 years and the drama of trying to not repeat the\nsame old, same old, pattern, where roles and responsibilities are so\noverwhelming that we end up hating our lives and resenting the ones\nwe loved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set\nin an office building\u2019s basement, with a door that needs a broom to\nhold it open, Spanish Steps<\/em>\noff-sets the capitalist measure of success: \u201cclimbing up the\nladder\u201d, with an invitation to come downstairs instead. Downstairs,\nin the basement of an office building with piles of old boxes,\nscruffy office chairs and a rubbish bin\namidst balls of crumpled paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter\nBarry, the kind\nof stock character who appears onto the stage wiping his hands with\nmoist toilet paper, after flushing the toilet in the back corner. A\nwhite, grey-haired, balding man (played by\nGavin Werner) presenting\nthe quintessential foot-shuffling, porn-watching, hates-his-job\nworker who has been at his post for far too long. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This expectedly annoying old-white-male character becomes the key to an uncanny opening of a door to compassion. Gavin Werner, who writes and acts in Spanish Steps<\/em> tells The Cape Robyn<\/a> that he wrote his character after his father as well as himself. When Werner began ageing, he realized that he displayed some of his father\u2019s characteristics and began the long journey of writing this play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barry\u2019s\nentrance is familiar. Not only does the current tour of John Kani\u2019s\nKunene and the King<\/em>\nbegin similarly – old white man flushes toilet and drags himself onto\nthe stage – but there is a vivid picture of tired, old, patriarchal\nwhiteness releasing itself from repeating its old performance. In\nKani\u2019s play it is 25 years of racial democracy onstage. In Spanish\nSteps<\/em>, the satire simmers gently until\nit brews with the politics of relationships. And this two-hander\nplaces the relationship of a man and a woman into the pot, not race. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nwoman enters by climbing down the stairs to the man\u2019s cave and they\nboth see each other\u2019s shadows reflected by their carefully\nmaintained images. Yes, the unkempt image of the protagonist is\nactually his life-long rebellion against being primed into \u201cMr\nRight\u201d. Barry has been married for 25 years, with a daughter of 25\nyears of age, and at the same job for about the same number of years.\nHe hates his life. A familiar fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His\ncounterpart in the two-hander comedy drama is Maureen, the HR\ndirector. A\npencil-skirt and blazer wearing career-woman who preens like a bird,\nis taut at the neck from the labour of always putting her nose in the\nair. The pair make for a hilarious contrast as Dianne Simpson\ndelivers a stupendously nuanced performance of her own stereotypical\nrole. The rub is that these characters turn out not to be stereotypes\nat all. The audience becomes part of the theme of expectation and\nperformance when challenged with the shift into the characters\ndepths. \u2018Will you please allow me one moment to stand on my victim\npodium\u2019, Barry shouts, at the play\u2019s height. But he\npauses. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nis a tension between expectation and performance. The performer has\nto stop playing along for change to happen. Barry\u2019s desire to be\npursue his dream means he can choose to be vulnerable. But he is\nstuck playing a victim in a basement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nSpanish Steps<\/em>,\nthis failure begins as a farce, beginning\nas an open trouser-fly and\nsnot-on-handkerchief kind of slapstick that just fails to hit the\nmark of its many initial puns. Then, d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu kicks in and the world\nthat looked annoyingly familiar moves closer to being a mirror of our\njourneys, up or down. We\nall sit together, realising our role as hierarchical viewers, looking\ndown on Barry, and\nsomething shifts. Eventually the door opens. A different story is\npossible. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nis much-needed tender introspection,\nsardonic humour, and awareness vital in our post-pandemic theatre.\nCaroline Midgley\u2019s layered directorial touch makes one wonder how\ntender human failings can be treated with such ridiculous banality as\nthe sound of pornography blaring overhead from a pot-bellied office\nworker\u2019s cell, and\nyet still have you leave the theatre re-assessing how you live. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately,\n<\/em>Spanish\nSteps has finished it\u2019s run at\nthe National Arts Festival.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWritten\nby Gavin WernerCast:
\nBarry (Male lead): Gavin\nWerner
\nMaureen (Female lead): Dianne Simpson
\nDirector:\nCaroline Midgley
\nLighting Design: Frans Mandilakhe\nZunguze
\nPhotography: Rethea Boer<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If this play feels like d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu, then you are exactly where you should be. Spanish Steps pits dreams and folly in such intimate proximity that it trips you into … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":4777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[1203,577],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4778,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776\/revisions\/4778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}