This article first appeared in THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

20th January 2008

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The castle edifice that dominates the set of Mirror, Mirror prepares us for a tale of kings, queens and chivalrous knights, but it very soon becomes evident that this play is about South African realities. It seems incongruous: a hawker selling hangers and trinkets or begging for money is a familiar sight at our intersections, but this usually involves suburbanites driving SUVs and not nobles trotting on horses. Certainly not horses represented by mops.

Such a scene offers two useful insights into Mike van Graan’s latest work. On the one hand, it doesn’t take itself too seriously; the characters are mostly caricatures, the tone is light and, in many instances, the cast self-consciously derides the very exercise of play-making. On the other hand, however, it has a very serious message, which is that the gap between the very rich and the very poor in South Africa creates a situation not dissimilar to living conditions in medieval Europe: misery for the peasant majority, luxury for the wealthy minority. 2010 may as well be 1020.

There is a further complication. That moment at the ‘medieval traffic light’ takes place, we soon realise, during the reign of one Queen Amanda – who, in this play, represents the apartheid government. A few of these double-anachronisms crop up, as when jokes are made using terms from post-apartheid discourse (tax amnesty, BEE) while the struggle against apartheid/Amanda is being depicted onstage. Yet they have some value, insofar as they prepare us for the sobering conclusion reached by the end of the play that life in democratic South Africa is not that different to life under apartheid.

Although it is not quite fair to say – as I heard an American member of the audience commenting afterwards – that “Mirror, Mirror presents the story of South Africa in one-and-a-half hours”, it does provide a fairly compact narrative of this country’s history over the last, say, fifty years. There are the struggle heroes who die in detention (including the iconic ‘Okib’, for which read ‘Biko’) and the hypocritical villains (Queen Amanda has a raunchy fling with her bishop, hinting at certain churches ‘getting into bed with’ the apartheid government). There are the aristocrats, or whites (at best pompous and ignorant, at worst extremely cruel) and the peasants, or blacks (no one gets off lightly, however – the internecine strife and domestic violence amongst black South Africans under apartheid is also portrayed).

Then Queen Amanda’s conscience gets to her and she decides to abdicate. This is a bit simplistic, although in all fairness it would be difficult to encapsulate the complex set of reasons for the end of apartheid in a few moments on stage; there are nonetheless one or two other instances where historical sensitivity is lacking (such as when two camp aristocrats are bemoaning how “conscription just sucks”).

The transition to democracy receives a bitterly funny treatment, starting with an astute mockery of the CODESA negotiations. The opposing parties play ching chong cha to divide the spoils: the whites/aristocrats get to keep their castles and control the economy, the blacks/peasants get the army and the media (on which point it may be added that the stifling of media and thus public intellectual freedom, both pre-1990 and post-1994, is well conveyed throughout the production). As the threatening “haai, haai” of the toyi-toying masses becomes a friendly “hi, hi”, the TRC comes under the spotlight for chastising the wrong apartheid criminals.

Then the satire of ANC government begins in earnest: lavish misspending on banquets, awarding building tenders based on favouritism rather than competence, an apparent indifference to poverty, crime and HIV/AIDS (or, in the medieval terms of the play, “the plague”), tokenism in sport, the Lotto, the arms deal, Tony Yengeni, power cuts and, most entertainingly, curious consultations with quack doctors, dissidents and other ‘flat earth believers’ (in the form of a fortune-telling hag).

Thabo Mbeki gets a bad rap: jet-setter, obscure speech-maker, abuser of the organs of state, neurotic controller of party policy, participant in the Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and Jackie Selebi sagas. This “No. 1” and his “No. 2” engage in a not-so-subtle power struggle, and by this point the action really is contemporary. (The play has been updated since it first appeared at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown last year).

Amidst the humour, there are moments of deep pathos and even outrage – most of them centring on the long-suffering and aptly-named Patience, who prostitutes herself under Amanda’s regime in order to feed her children, has her child killed by one of her ‘customers’, is beaten by her husband for producing a ‘brown’ baby, is misled by election promises and finally succumbs to ‘the plague’ in the play’s last scene, leaving an orphaned toddler.

It is left to Artimir, the central character in the piece, to comfort the child and fold her hand into a fist, signifying ‘the new struggle’. Artimir is, of course, the artist and jester who, having criticised Amanda/apartheid, is equally obliged to protest against injustices committed under the new government – even if he is branded a “counter-revolutionary” and “ultra-leftist” for doing so.

What about the real-life artists? Van Graan has written a script that offers, despite some tired puns and facile references (“peasants are revolting”, “let them eat cake”), a witty and biting satire. The talented young cast, under the direction of Geoff Hyland, work very well in ensemble but deserve to be mentioned individually: they are Andrew Laubscher, Portia Mntuyedwa, Sibongile Balfour, Dylan Esbach, Emily Child, Pakamisa Zwedala, Peggy Tunyiswa and Tamarin McGinley.

Mirror, Mirror runs at the Baxter Sanlam Studio until 9th February.