Katlego Kaygee Letsholonyana (left) and Bongani Bennedict Masango play roles in Dark Noon, a history of the American West seen through the lens of South Africans’ experience of apartheid.
Dark Noon, the South African-devised history of the American West now visiting Brooklyn from the Edinburgh Festival, foregrounds violence by white Europeans against blacks, Asians, and native Americans to debunk the mythology of America established by heroes in film westerns. The title deliberately references High Noon (1952), of course. But although “slapstick humor” is billed as one element of the production, the piece belongs to the “in yer face” school of theater, established in Britain in the 1990s. The “send-up” is a heavy-handed, if justifiable, attack on the depredations of Manifest Destiny.
Joe Young (left) and Siyambonga Alfred Mdubeki (in black) as a missionary stand in a “church” structure with a “congregation” from the audience.
The play, by Danish writer Tue Biering, who also co-directs with Nhlanhla Mahlangu, is performed by a cast of seven, all of whom undertake various roles, including that of narrator in front of a camera, face looming on a large screen. Joe Young is the only white actor, and Lillian Tshabalala-Malulyck is the sole woman. All the actors play both sexes and all races—the black actors smear on whiteface.
Starting with a slow-motion gunfight recorded on video—the movements are familiar from the classic Hollywood shoot’em-ups—the production’s sensibility is quickly announced by Tshabalala-Malulyck, the first narrator, who says, “The scenario you have just witnessed was from a time where people shot at each other for no apparent reason. It was a time where white lives didn’t matter. … So brace yourself, we have a long story ahead.”
And it does cover a lot, from slavery to the building of the transcontinental railroad to the Gold Rush to range wars between cattlemen and farmers. Along the way, white settlers kill native Americans and Chinese immigrants. They kill one another when farmers and cattlemen clash. Early on, the friction between Settlers and Natives is embodied in a game of American football. When the natives win, the Settlers shoot them dead. Violence is ever-present, but so is hope, as expressed by a railroad worker turned entrepreneur (Mandla Gaduka):
I dream of a day where I can be respected as Chinese immigrant who contributed to American society as a businessman. … But the sad reality is that the distance between my dream and reality are very far apart.
Thulani Zwane (right), playing a white European immigrant, awaits inspection as Joe Young gives orders from the narrator’s booth. Photographs by Teddy Wolff.
Divided into chapters with titles like “Gold, gold, gold” and “Genocides,” the production has an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink sensibility that eventually proves wearying. In addition to the camera, sometimes stationary and sometimes handheld, the actors race up and down the stage frequently, showing off their expertise in professional bellowing. Wigs come on and off. Shirts too. An enactment of a particular evil may be followed anachronistically by a TV reporter assessing it. And the actors occasionally direct each other. “Mandla,” says narrator Tshabalala-Malulyck to Gaduka, who plays Sam Brannan, a Mormon who profited greatly from gold fever, “I think Sam would be more enthusiastic than that, it’s God talking to him.”
The gimmickry is relentless. Periodically, audience members are cajoled on stage to embody slaves bid on at an auction, natives rounded up on a reservation, or a prairie congregation—with a lot of hectoring, often by Bongani Bennedict Masango, who excels at inhabiting mostly trigger-happy characters you’d never want to meet, in addition to a Coca-Cola merchant giving the audience members the hard sell, for real money.
Lillian Tshabalala-Malulyck plays a desperate mother.
The most impressive feature of the production is the set. On opposite sides of the railway that runs down center stage, a town slowly arises—the structures are just frames designed by Johan Kølkjær and erected as the story embraces every aspect of life: a “little house on the prairie,” a brothel, a church, a jail, a bank, and a Chinese restaurant. But as they go up, the simultaneous scenes with actors increase in the different places, and more and more audience members are enlisted. The whole becomes a frenetic cacophony.
In a coda, each of the South African actors talks about growing up; some had no plumbing and no television. Some saw American westerns at the movies or on TV but couldn’t understand the language. The point is made that without the dialogue what mainly travels is the gun violence, which the South African performers filter through their own experiences under apartheid.
At the same time, the critique of American westerns feels uninformed. White criminals are called to account by heroes as varied as Jimmy Stewart’s nonviolent sheriff in Destry Rides Again, John Wayne’s aging but principled bounty hunter in True Grit, and the laconic, nuanced loners played by Randolph Scott, who notably stands against the corrupt town fathers in Buchanan Rides Alone. Dark Noon is an energetic juggernaut, but one wishes the show had a more discerning eye.
The Fix+Foxy production of Dark Noon runs through July 7 at St. Ann’s Warehouse (45 Water St., Brooklyn). Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; matinees are at 5 p.m. Sunday. For tickets and more information, visit stannswarehouse.org.
Playwright: Tue Biering
Direction: Tue Biering & Nhlanhla Mahlangu
Choreography: Nhlanhla Mahlangu
Set Design: Johan Kølkjær
Costume Design: Camilla Lind
Lighting Design: Christoffer Gulløv
Sound Design: Ditlev Brinth
Video Design: Rasmus Kreiner
