VICTIMS
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That’s both good and bad for Victims, written by another Afrikaaner, Antony Van Zyl. The play may well benefit from renewed interest in South Africa, displaced in the headlines these days by the turmoil in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. But though Victims is certainly powerful theater, unlike Gordimer’s writings, which explore the nuances of apartheid’s degradation, it’s all broad strokes. There is never any doubt where Van Zyl and director Michael E. Myers stand, either on the big or the small issues. There is never any question about how the audience is supposed to feel. Indeed, there is much overt manipulation in Victims. The subtleties have been left to the actors, who were simply superb.
David Barr as Phillip Mbuso, the black victim in the play’s trio of men, is magnificent. His characterization both engages and repulses, creates sympathy and horror. Though Phillip is the moral center of Victims, it’s critical that he also be convincingly immoral–that is, his spirit must be so ravaged that he believes the lies he must tell to survive. Barr does not disappoint.
The men who mold the monster are Johan Verkuil, an Afrikaaner prison guard (Nick Kusenko), and Charlie Anderson, the English officer who sets policy at the prison (Harry Hutchinson). Of the two, Johan is the more difficult to play–Van Zyl doesn’t really provide for the changes in this character. When we first encounter Johan he’s a torture machine, bitter, relentless, and without a conscience. By the end of the play he’s the embodiment of the new South Africa, “an Afrikaaner who sees the future and accepts it,” as Phillip says of him. It’s too great a change, even if it’s fully expected. Kusenko is excellent, but that isn’t enough.
