Clemmy Manzo
posted 9 March 2007

I challenge you to find a play that takes you on a greater voyage of emotions than Generations does in just half an hour. This play enchants you from the very moment you enter the theatre space, when you are grabbed by one of the South African choir singers and handed a plastic stool to plonk anywhere you like on the dusty red clay floor.

As the theatre fills up with an audience and the voices of this hugely talented vocal group, you watch, entranced by the energetic dancing and stamping of feet, rhythmic slaps on the wall, wailing cries and beautiful vocal sounds. The mood is contagiously uplifting and it is worth coming to see for the choir (led by Pauline Malefane) alone.

The play begins: in the centre of the room a domestic kitchen scene unveils. Three generations laugh and tease each other as they prepare their dinner. 'Oh God!' exclaim the daughters, laughing as their mum and dad flirt with each other. Then a strange thing happens. As the playful dialogue comes to an end, the youngest daughter walks off the stage and into the darkness of the theatre, as somewhere in the distance her name is called.

The same dialogue ensues all over again from the beginning, this time without her - yet her absence is felt as her words are no longer spoken. The laughter dwindles but there are still (sad) smiles. One by one, each family member walks off the stage and again, each time this happens, the same dialogue starts over. Finally the laughter and the smiles come to a complete halt and are replaced by dismal despair, as what we are left with at the end are the two grandparents, with no family except each other. Their dialogue is now tired and stale, a mere echo of the joyful banter it once was, and a strong sense of sadness takes hold that left half the audience in tears as the lights went out.

Although the dialogue is almost word for word each time, there are a few exceptions to the repetition: the father whispers, 'I miss them', when the daughters have gone, as does the grandfather when the mother too is gone, only to be met with, 'what did he say?', in response. It seems the absence gnawing at the core of the play is not allowed to be voiced. And what has happened to these family members? The reference to 'this big dying thing' (another exception to the fixed dialogue) suggests it is AIDS that stole the happy family away. The daughters' exclamations, 'Oh God!' of the original dialogue takes on an eerie poignancy that sends a shudder down your spine when it is repeated by the grief-stricken widowed mother when she echoes this exclamation in the fourth dialogue - what once was funny is now tragic as the tone of the same words changes entirely, a pattern paralleled in the play itself.

Debbie Tucker Green's play is a masterpiece of simplicity; its compact nature makes it all the more harrowing. You will enter laughing and leave crying - quite a feat for a 30 minute play.

Till 10 March 2007