Woolworths: Cut-and-paste-culture gets collaged

White, English speaking South Africans, for all their privilege, are at a striking disadvantage when it comes to cultural identity.

To cling to England after generations of living in the far south of Africa, with its sky and its sun and its dust and its blood and thorns, is to be ridiculous, although some do try. For to let it go is to have to flounder for a sense of belonging amid peoples with unbreakable bonds to the land; to be left with nothing to hold onto other than an intellectual tradition of liberalism. A tradition which, although it led the only Parliamentary opposition against apartheid, has become ever more scorned in the new democracy, stripping its adherents of their last vestige of identity and leaving us lost in a land of absolutes. Small wonder we’re carrying ourselves off to Christchurch; we’re little more than ghosts, we could be anywhere, so why not somewhere that is safer and, ironically given our Constitution, more progressive? (For those choosing to live in the ultra-conservative, mining-obsessed former penal colony, I have no words).

The bitter pill of non-identity is hard to swallow, although privilege does dilute the existential crisis it induces. I like to think some of us use the upside of this agnostic condition to enjoy the greater freedom of association the lack of cultural and familial expectation allows. Should I probe too far, I may be disappointed.

Juliet Jenkin has done some probing, and the results of what she has staged confirm my fears; rather than walk into the void with head held high and attempt to forge a new path of multi-cultural awareness and national participation, we tend to grab onto whatever rungs we can, no matter how flimsy, to prevent our perceived descent down the mine shaft of our shared history. Perhaps there’s too much of past global conquest still lodged in our white DNA, inducing an arrogant sense of superiority, the counter product being terror at the idea of having to sweat and toil alongside the offspring of those our ancestors relentlessly oppressed in order to help unearth the vein of gold we can all share.

Instead, in our efforts to avoid leaning shoulder to shoulder in the dirt and gloom, we choose to live in a carefully maintained state of denial.

As a result, we’ve become a schizophrenic, consumer-driven, hysterically fearful, idolising bunch of pale wishy-washies who identify more closely with a sanitised version of America in all its WASP glory, than with the countrypersons we live among.

Jenkin reveals how we’d rather align ourselves, and our money, with the stories born of half-truths penned by advertising marketeers and plakked on the side of every product sold at Woolworths, than know the life story of the domestic worker or gardener we pay to keep our house tidy.

We’d sooner idolise Nick Mallet than critically examine how FW de Klerk tied South Africa’s democracy to apartheid’s shackles, or how Jan Smuts and the English boys paved the way for the successful implementation of apartheid in the first place. And now we’re scared. So full of fear we fail to see humanity in our neighbours’ eyes.

Thus Woolworths is tragic. It is also deeply, cynically, hilarious. A triumph of black humour. Jenkin puts us onstage and rips away the layers of our half-baked intellectualism and rationalisations until our type is naked with all our character flaws hanging out.

The paradox is that we are so quintessentially South African. And providing this identity, however much in the negative, makes it ironically comforting. We pale wishy-washies are a tribe. As South African as meerkats.

Eschewing the narrative arc, Woolworths achieves its objective through choral work, choreography and physical theatre presenting a collage of ideas and texts and images through near-perfect ensemble work. The collage is an inspired choice to represent the multiple half-formed facets of our white middle-class culture, combining overall to form a polished work that is at once spectacular and sublime.

The only drawback is the stage at the Alexander Theatre (now revamped and run by the Courtyard Playhouse) is small for a work of this size. The choreography is designed for a larger space and at times there’s a sense of looking at a thumbnail pic rather than seeing the grand view. The fixed set for Courtyard Playhouse’s regular improv shows doesn’t help. Still, the intimacy of the theatre provides in-your-face impact that makes up for the constricted movement.

And in the end, for all the parody of the beleagured white middle class, if my tribe can have this to say about itself, then it’s doing some hard work. Perhaps it’s going to be okay.

Woolworths is written and directed by Juliet Jenkin.

Starring Clyde Berning, Alice De Beer, Alicia McCormick, Kaylee McIlroy, Francesco Nassimbeni, Tazmé Pillay, and Johann Vermaak.

Playing at the Alexander Upstairs theatre, 76 Strand Street, until 29 Feb at 7pm & 9pm

Tickets: R180 (Students & Pensioners R100) To Book: http://courtyardplayhouse-ct.com