Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act

Queue early for this production, as if you sit further back than the front two rows, your view will be severely hampered.

With a lot of the action taking place on the floor of the stage, it’s a mistake not to raise that stage so the audience can actually see. That’s distraction enough, without the loud burr of the air con unit in Assembly’s Rainy Hall adding its own.

If you can supress these irritations, you may appreciate this production of Athol Fugard’s apartheid-era play—direct from Cape Town's Fugard Theatre—which enacts the devastating reality of living under South Africa’s 1957 Immorality Act, which banned inter-racial sexual relations.

A black school principal’s affair with a white librarian is discovered by a neighbour and reported to the authorities, who drag them in for humiliating questioning. Spending the entire play naked or nearly naked, it’s a brave performance from the two leads, whose bare flesh reflects both the closeness of the couple’s relationship and the extent of their exposure – their illegal action is literally uncovered.

But this isn’t just a story of love against the odds. Fugard explores the complexities of love in an unequal society: did she, a lonely virgin, abuse her position as a white woman; did he, a married man with a child, really love her or feel unable to turn her down?

Fugard’s play is an essential component of Assembly’s South Africa season; it’s just a shame the poor viewing conditions—not helped by the production’s shadowy lighting and frequent strobe effects—seriously detract from this historically important piece of storytelling.