We walk into a TV set, and we are the audience. It is a current affairs and hard-hitting news talk show called 'Confessional' wit it's host John Josana. His guest this week an Afrikaaner called Marcus Muller. In the two hours that follow, we are taken back to their first meeting, on a train from Scotland to London, and we learn about who these two people are and how very much more interconnected they are, more so than perhaps either would like to believe. Josana is a black South African, proud of his heritage, despite fleeing the country with his father to live in England when only a small baby, whilst Muller obviously represents all that Josana was fighting against, he is a white Boer and pro Apartheid.
The play takes us through the conflicts of both South Africa and Angola and their and their families respective places in them, and despite both these characters being fictional we learn much about the politics and recent history of southern Africa and racism in general, as well as trip into war-time Berlin and Nazicism.
The whole is intense and intimate, and you really have to listen hard and not allow your attention to wander. It is not an easy play to watch in that regard, but the two actors are superb. Josana utterly believable as the TV chat show darling with a much deeper and more fundamental core. His vocal control superb, although at times his voice dips just a tad to much for those seated at the rear. However his voice is clear and articulate and his manner sincere. Whilst Muller has a thick Afrikaans accent, which at first takes a little getting used to, but again, his characterisation is solid and perhaps also a little (deliberately so) freaky.
There is a screen centre stage which is used to show archive images and footage of the conflicts and people mentioned, and is very apt. Extremely cleverly done since the images are of the two protagonists in various stages of their lives. The train journey footage worked less well however. A nice idea, but it went on too long, did not show an accurate journey into London King's Cross, and was actually a little focus-pulling too diffusing the dialogue happening beneath it.
A wordy play with both actors having long monologues and yet we never lose interest nor do they lose intent. It is compelling and powerfully portrayed. Two people meet on a train, not by chance but by design, and this is their story. Fantasy and reality combine in a sensitive and absorbing blend in the form of a metaphorical moth.
Reviewer - Alastair Zyggu
on - 11.4.25
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