I went to see my play Noise at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg, and was kindly hosted by the play’s director, Dorothy Anne Gould and her husband, Mike who made me very welcome. It was a fantastic production, great reviews and standing ovations! Had such a great time also hanging out with Dorothy and Mike and seeing the wonderful work she does with some of the homeless guys there – an inspirational woman! Lots to remember and reflect upon… We talked about some of my other my plays too; most notably, River’s Up and Mr and Mrs Schultz, don’t know if anything will come of this, but I would love to see my work again in that amazing theatre. Also had the all clear just before Christmas following a scan and biopsy as I had some worrying results following my regular medicals to do with my previous cancer, so a very positive end to 2015. Below are a couple of reviews and a production photograph of Dorothy’s very talented cast…
'Noise' is relevant and uncomfortable
Jennifer de Klerk ‘Artslink Co Za’
11/21/2015 11:56:11
Jennifer de Klerk: Music so loud that the walls vibrate, plaster dust sifts from the ceiling and the bass throbs through your head. You can’t think, you can’t sleep; all you can do is stuff your ears and endure, hoping that the neighbours will come to their senses soon. They never do. It’s not an uncommon scenario in my part of the town, so I related well and truly to the dilemma of Danny and Becky, a delightful young couple staking their claim on a flat in Hillbrow. Young, so very young. He’s 18, starting his first job. She’s 17, pregnant, cast off by her family. It hurts, but she has Danny and the baby and a fresh start as a new family. The first scene is beautifully played, kids in love, having fun, playing house … then the noise floods through the walls and reality sets in. Exhausted, irritated, bickering, they ask the neighbour to turn it down. He turns it up. They report him to the agents and Matt, physical, psycho, unemployed, drunk and booze-driven, enters their lives. There’s another beautifully played scene between Matt (Rowlen von Gericke) and Becky (Nokuthula Ledwaba), a delicate game of connection and withdrawal, a cat playing with a mouse… The end is clear, the future is written – desperately you hope for a resolution, a way out, a way to preserve the innocence, the dreams. But this is reality … The play was originally set in Birmingham in the UK, obviously then a down-and-out city. Unfortunately it transposes only too well to modern Johannesburg and has been neatly recast in the vernacular. Danny (Thabo Rometsi) and Becky are instantly recognisable and so, unfortunately, is rage-filled Matt lashing out at the world that has denied him. Fear, helplessness, nowhere to turn, where the strongest rule and the weak endure, or leave, or die … it’s a bleak and despondent outlook. This is not a comfortable play, but one impossible to forget, a searing piece acted and directed with exceptional skill. Certainly I will remember it next time the noise shakes the ceiling and no one answers the phone. Noise is written by Alex Jones and directed by Dorothy Ann Gould. It runs at the Market Theatre until December 6.
This is a powerful piece of theatre, but you have to wonder why anyone would want to see it. We live amidst brutality and madness, where the abuse of women is rife, and men and women, alike, carry ourselves with a constant tinge of wariness. Noise heightens this in 90 minutes of domestic soapy cum thriller. Theatre Review by LESLEY STONES. ‘Daily Maverick’
A play now running at the Market Theatre in Joburg is stunningly well performed, and excellently directed. But I would not recommend it to anyone. I came out of Noise feeling traumatised, as if I had lived the experience of the characters with them. Noise was written by Alex Jones more than 20 years ago, and set in Birmingham in the United Kingdom. But the play feels like it has always belonged in Hillbrow, where it’s now set thanks to director Dorothy Ann Gould, and Mark Graham Wilson, who helped to adapt the script. It is a powerful piece, but you have to wonder why anyone would want to see it, or why Gould wanted to revive it. We live amidst brutality and madness, where the abuse of women is rife, and men and women, alike, carry ourselves with a constant tinge of wariness. Noise heightens this in 90 minutes of domestic soapy cum thriller. When we meet a young and decent couple, excited to be moving into their new flat in Hillbrow, we just know something bad is going to happen. And it does, when the neighbour’s music comes boom-boxing through the walls at all hours of the day, and night. That is intolerable by itself, but when they meet the source of that noise, the drug-addled, psychotic and unemployed Matthew, the trauma escalates. Gould writes in the programme notes that Noise is “searing, brutal, and cathartic.” I missed the cathartic part, sitting through the show and jumping every time the music began, tense for what was about to unfold. Actors Rowlen von Gericke, Thabo Rametsi and Nokuthula Ledwaba are all excellent, but it the men who control this story. Von Gericke is terrifying as the psychotic neighbour, clearly unhinged and swinging from lost and lonely to violently deranged in a second. He is utterly believable, as is the entire story about a young couple whose hope and optimism is ground down, and snuffed out brutally by this third party. Rametsi as Dan and Ledwaba, as his young wife Becky, capture a playfulness and almost tangible love between their characters in the early scenes, although their chatter drags on for too long, when you know that action is lurking in the wings. Rametsi is a powerful force, an open book of an actor, who has you initially sharing his enthusiasm and delight for life, then later feeling his fear, and helplessness, despair and loss. It is the searing combination of Von Gericke’s mania, and Rametsi’s shattered dreams, that make this play so viscerally gruelling, aided by the brutality that stunts Ledwaba’s Becky. The noise that erupts from time-to-time hammers home the inhumanity of it, often so loudly that you cannot hear the words until the volume is toned down to let the dialogue continue. The pounding in your eardrums is another reason why you feel you are living the trauma with them. You leave wondering what you would do in the same situation. Call the cops? Resort to violence yourself? Be defeated and broken? You’ll admire the intensity, and talk about the actions, and emotions, for sure. But I doubt you will, actually, enjoy it. DM
