Love and the anxiety of separation are concomitant. In a country unfortunately all too aware of the precariousness of life, Louw Venter (a.k.a Corné of the comic duo with Twakkie in The Most Amazing Show) as a young father has fretted about what would happen if his children were left behind. In his one-man play, Out of Time, an everyday family picnic is transformed into a terrifying confrontation with our mortality.
While at some horseplay with his brother, Lukas Nel (Venter) falls with his back on a rock paralysing him. As in Graham Weir’s far darker piece Brief Descriptions, from now on, he can speak his thoughts directly to the audience, but no one else can hear him. Nel, dying, watches his young son. The dramatic monologue that ensues is his paean to him.
The scenario is a neat conceit for the helplessness all parents feel to protect their children against life’s vagaries. It is also a natural opportunity to reflect on his own father – taking the good and breaking with the destructive patterns. Venter draws neat caricatures of Nel’s childhood gang of friends and their daredevil antics.
Venter exploits the thematic possibilities successfully, but together with director Rob van Vuuren, they haven’t quite optimised the full dramatic potential of this riveting set-up. Given the situation, Out of Time is a surprising (and fitting) celebration of life and love, but leans perhaps too cautiously towards the comic with an occasional emotional hiatus rather than a climax.
Besides his many talents, clowning clearly comes naturally, but Venter is a superb actor and I’d love to see him one day in a straight part in a solid play. It is well worth seeing Venter immersing himself in his own serious dramatic work.
