Uncomfortably Real? Refreshingly Honest? Nah.

So I've been thinking, 'What If' I never headed over to the Punchi Theatre on Saturday?

What if, indeed. I'd have had several better things to do, I tell you.

 They promised us a slightly pseudo-intellectual, psychological, soul searching experience and good Lord, they had an abundance of vacuous adjectives to describe it in their publicity campaign. But honestly, what was the point of all that drivel if it didn't break some new ground, as extensively promised? What we saw was a bunch of adoloscent smartypants doing their best to make a claim for adulthood by declaring a new level of insight into the psychology of relationships. Balls.

So maybe I sound like a full blown bitch. Granted. What can I say? When the buttons get pushed...

To clarify here, don't get me wrong- I do have good things to say. In an everyday, realistic way the script was well written. It was fairly natural, and as a result, convincing. For the most part it was pleasantly minimalistic and believable- as was the acting at times. Until of course, the lecturing set in. Strange. At 22 years, I am no spring chicken darlings, but I know well enough to know that the adoloscent (for whom the play seemed to have been written) don't appreciate sermonizing, thank you very much, goodbye. Yet young Wasaam Ismail appeared to revel in the ernest preaching a leeetle too much, me thinks. The lady in the psycho-analyst cum matron of purgatory role regurgitated a just a TAD too much hackneyed psychology on relationships. Being in love and loving someone are two very different things-duuuh, newsflash, ding ding ding. If you promise to tell us something we didn't know already or pull us out of our collective comfort zones, tell us something new, por favor.

The acting. Granted, in terms of well rounded characters...lets not go there. But that shouldn't matter, considering the apparent purpose of the play and the subject matter. But geez, don't give us ham and (I overheard this comment and just learnt what it meant :) ) 'polkudu accents'.

There isn't too much else to say, really. Despite the pitfalls, respect to the director/writer for making the attempt. For making a start. Wasaam Ismail is as I said a bit of an adoloscent smartypants but there is some amazing potential there as long as he doesn't fall into the trap of striving to be over-creative.

The creativity part of things was fairly clear- I loved the soundtrack, there were a lot of contemporary, relevant, mood setting and mature choices there. The production was theatrical eye candy- no distracting shifting of sets and dragging of wood on wood, no long blackouts. There was professional simplicity the multi-purpose platforms and the lighting was used to good effect in indicating the emotions of the scenes.

And there we have it. Yes, I was disappointed but there were positives. Hopefully I've redeemed my inherrently bitchy nature :)