I particularly liked Nobody Told Me at the Theatre on the Square, Sandton because of its staging, which was the very reason why some others didn’t enjoy it. A debut play by Luc Albinski, who wanted to tell a story that impacted his life, and directed by Ilina Perianova, who as far as I know but could be wrong came from Bulgaria to direct it – she had started working on a possible screenplay of the story previously – it doesn’t present a hyper-realistic portrayal. As in it’s no kitchen-sink drama, thank goodness. Renos Nicos Spanoudes is the assistant director. Most of the cast of 10 play multiple characters or furniture, such as windows, and move benches around to create certain settings and hold up cut-outs to depict windows and such like in a set designed by Wilhelm Disbergen. A few times an actor steps to the side of the stage to modern-day Joburg to depict the playwright in conversation with his mother, a device which depicts the making of the play. The rest is set in Poland during WWII. The casting is something we don’t often see, where a group of actors play characters even if they don’t sound or look like them. So a multiracial cast, a very strong cast I might add, with tinges of Afrikaans accents, play characters from Jew-catchers to Jewish doctors living in a Polish ghetto. In such an ensemble piece I am obviously hesitant to name specific actors but two who don’t swop roles in the production, Liezl De Kock, as the almost annoyingly too-devoted medical doctor and Jade Scheepers as her daughter are among the characters that stand out because of their dominance. De Kock, in particular, gives a hauntingly nuanced portrayal.
One of the strongest features of this production is the music. It is extraordinary, inspired at times by well-known Yiddish or possibly liturgical melodies, and composed by the legendary Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph. At the performance I attended it was played far too loudly but that can easily be corrected.
This production is fresh in its approach of events that took place many years ago but resonant intensely today. Hat’s off to the two directors, the cast, the composer and the designer.
The main distraction is the length. It could and should be trimmed by at least 20 minutes. And as this season of Nobody Told Me is so short that it feels like a trial run – it is on until February 7 – perhaps the declamatory style of the opening poem could be reconsidered.
According to Webtickets, the season is sold out. Perhaps it is worth contacting the theatre itself to see if there are cancellations.