The title Dario Fo gave his Nobel lecture was Contra Jogulatores Obloquentes – a law from 1221 ‘against jesters who defame and insult’. Promulgated by Emperor Frederick II it granted legal immunity to any outraged citizen who assaulted or killed a jester. Fortunately, we have a constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech to artists, for Stoutgatpassie is a daring work. Moreover, Oscar Petersen and David Isaacs – stand to offend, confuse and disappoint their hard won audience. That they are prepared to run this risk is a great testament to their calibre as individuals and committed artists.
On the evening I saw the play, I witnessed Isaacs and Petersen get a grilling from angry patrons who had come for barbershop humour. Laughing inappropriately throughout the show, I overheard them repeatedly describing the play as “kak” as they waited in the foyer for the actors to emerge. When Isaacs and Petersen did come out, they toned down. A shaven headed patron in a leather jacket with a kind, round face, but an aggressive manner, said that when he saw three crosses on the stage he started to wonder: “Waar kom Washiela nou hier in?” – referring to the popular character in the Joe Barber series. A fruitful discussion followed, ending with the reconciled patrons agreeing they needed to come back and see the show again.
On closer examination it is not surprising the team have chosen Fo’s 1969 Mistero Buffo (‘Comic Mystery’). The Joe Barber series is after all our own Cape commedia dell’arte, and like the giullari – the guitar carrying Italian troubadours of the Middle Ages – Petersen and Isaacs bravely entertain with folk theatre and the cleverest of buffoonery.
Stoutgatpassie is an updated Cape vernacular reworking of Herman Pretorius’s slightly starchier translation of Buffo – Die Asjaspassie. It retells stories from the gospel metachronally. Thus, Jesus – bleeding and carrying his cross to Golgotha – confronts a repulsed Pope Bonifacius VIII; recognisable Cape folk characters watch Jesus wash feet at the last supper, and sell tickets to the raising of Lazarus.
The witnesses and characters who retell the bible stories are all-too-human – flawed, selfish, even mean and ignorant, but deeply touching and able to reveal with revolutionary clarity many uncomfortable truths. In a scene, also exploited by Monty Python in The Life of Brian, a cripple and a blind man complain that they lose their begging income when Jesus heals them. It’s a spiritual re-evaluation from a humanist, even communist perspective, similar to the work of Nikos Kazantzakis and fellow Italian Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Today’s burning issues – including land claims, suffering children, rape, societal hypocrisy, and killing in God’s name – are examined with a combination of mordant humour and righteous anger. That it uses parable and story allows for moral clarity not muddied by specifics.
Bronwyn van Graan and Mbulelo Grootboom, who is here more at ease on the stage than ever, perform well in supporting roles. Director Sandra Temmingh has kept the work uncluttered, as the author intended.
