TIME OUT London - April 10th-17th 2002

Missing, White Bear

Dominic Maxwell

Reza de Wet’s grimly witty one-act play has the feel of an Afrikaner fairy-tale as told to Ray Bradbury. Set in rural South Africa in 1936, it shares the American writer’s fondness for circuses as emblems of the grotesque unknown; of sexual awakening. It’s the night the circus comes to town, but mother and daughter stay home sewing sacks for dung, while father lives unseen in the attic. The sense of archetypes at play is heightened when local spinster Gertie comes over, not wanting to be home alone – local girls have vanished, barefoot in their confirmation dresses. And then the blind policeman arrives.

Odd stuff – but Derek Goldby’s astute production gets the tone absolutely right, anchoring the fantastical elements of de Wet’s script (translated from Afrikaans by Steven stead) in a vividly oppressive atmosphere. Kim Beresford’s set – all wood and corrugated iron – and Richard Williamson’s dim lighting draw us into this world of casual horror and dark jokes. Bernadette Shortt and Josephine Myddelton earth the show with their mighty matriarch and ground-down adolescent respectively, while Charmian May is beautifully bizarre as Gertie. But it’s Costa Milton’s poised performance as the constable that binds the production. Impassive yet engaged, he embodies the contrary spirit of a show that is demanding yet rewarding as it blends the magical with the mundane.