[NEohioPAL] Review of "Statements After An Arrest" at convergence-continuum

[Bob Abelman]

 con-con’s ‘Statements After An Arrest’ still arresting



Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

  

In 1949, love was legislated in South Africa.



The banning of mixed marriages became the first major piece of apartheid legislation.  The Immorality Act was soon followed by an amendment that outlawed interracial intercourse.



The ban was not lifted until 1985, so when South African playwright and novelist Athol Fugard's “Statements After An Arrest Under the Immorality Act” premiered in 1972 – a work that featured a post-coital conversation between a naked black man and a naked white woman – it was provocative on many levels.  Quite intentionally so.



Today, in this convergence-continuum production, the verbose but often-lyrical one-act play is a history lesson and a cautionary tale.  Its start-to-finish nudity still lays bare the characters’ souls and fully exposes their class- and racially-dictated defenses.  And the absence of sexual contact between them during this play continues to emphasize personal and emotional freedoms as their deepest, driving desires.



For more of this review, go to:  www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/bob_abelman/
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