Grocott's Mail
    Facebook Twitter Instagram
    Tuesday, June 24
    Facebook Twitter Instagram
    Grocott's Mail
    • NEWS
      • Courts & Crime
      • Features
      • Politics
      • People
      • Health & Well-being
    • SPORT
      • News
      • Results
      • Sports Diary
      • Club Contacts
      • Columns
      • Sport Galleries
      • Sport Videos
    • OPINION
      • Election Connection
      • Makana Voices
      • Deur ‘n Gekleurde Bril
      • Newtown… Old Eyes
      • Incisive View
      • Your Say
    • CUE
      • Cue Archives
    • ARTSLIFE
      • Makana Sharp!
      • Visual Art
      • Literature
      • Food
      • Festivals
      • Community Arts
      • Going Places
    • OUR TOWN
      • What’s on
      • Spiritual
      • Emergency & Well-being
      • Covid-19
      • Safety
      • Civic
      • Municipality
      • Weather
      • Properties
        • Grahamstown Properties
      • Your Town, Our Town
    • OUTSIDE
      • Enviro News
      • Gardening
      • Farming
      • Science
      • Conservation
      • Motoring
      • Pets/Animals
    • ECONOMIX
      • Business News
      • Entrepreneurship
      • Personal Finance
    • EDUCATION
      • Education NEWS
      • Education OUR TOWN
      • Education INFO
    • EDITORIAL
    Grocott's Mail
    You are at:Home»ARTS & LIFE»Watch out for the lava
    ARTS & LIFE

    Watch out for the lava

    Rod AmnerBy Rod AmnerJune 27, 2022Updated:June 27, 2022No Comments3 Mins Read
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
    Sophie Joans in 'Île'. Photo: Elejha-ze Gengan

    THEATRE: Île
    Review by DAVE MANN

    There is only the actor, the stage, and two wooden crates. It’s all the piece requires. In Île, Sophie Joans takes us from Cape Town to Mauritius through a series of humorous and incisive narrative accounts of her family, her heritage and the legacies of colonialism.

    It’s a hell of a play. Joans leads with a brief social and geographical history of Mauritius. Tectonic plates shift and grind, palm trees proliferate, dodos plod along happily (albeit briefly), and then a bunch of people show up, and the island becomes contested land. Somewhere in the latter part of this short, sharp retelling of events lies the emotional kernel of the play. In Île, Joans is forever returning to her ancestry – a messy affair involving settlement, migration, colonisation, lingering guilt, and a bristling matrilineal line that runs throughout the play.

    This heavy history, though, is hilariously retold. Addressing the audience throughout, Joans has a remarkable presence on stage, and much of Île’s narrative is communicated through her discerning physicality, coupled with a penchant for familiar and engaging storytelling. The writing is superb. It’s fast, funny, and able to turn on a dime – from the outrageous and the absurd to moments of striking sincerity.

    Sophie Joans imitates her aunt in ‘Île’. Photo: Elejha-ze Gengan

    She also pinpointed the universal in the anecdotal, neatly wrapped up in evocative and conversational vignettes. There are the stories of her strange (and somewhat incestuous) French family, her hotheaded relationship with her mother, and her calculated teenage rebellion.

    The writing also veers towards the surreal at times, turning feverish, evocative, and dreamlike. These moments are well-placed and draw their power from an enduring refrain – rage. “Sometimes I feel like there’s lava dripping down my maternal line,” she says. It’s a brilliant moment, enhanced by discerning lighting, which sees her plunging into a deep, dark sea.

    Île’s narrative lens doesn’t provide a comprehensive view of Mauritius’ history (sweeping sugarcane fields are referenced while the legacy of indentured labour is not), but it does offer a focused one. It’s a play that excavates and animates the aforementioned matrilineal lines as a point of connection, a search for one’s personal history to better make sense of the present. We’re just along for the journey, and happily so.      

    Île is on at the Gymnasium every day until 1 July.

    ©2022 The Critter. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

    Previous ArticleWriting towards repair
    Next Article Prompting Poppins
    Rod Amner
    • Website

    Comments are closed.

    Code of Ethics and Conduct
    GROCOTT’S SUBSCRIPTION
    RMR
    Listen to RMR


    Humans of Makhanda

    Humans of Makhanda

    Weather    |     About     |     Advertise     |     Subscribe     |     Contact     |     Support Grocott’s Mail

    © 2025 Maintained by School of Journalism & Media Studies.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.