Dimetos

Synopsis

Dimetos is one of what Fugard himself called his "abberant" plays. It is one of the three that is not set in South Africa, or deals with its politics. Instead it is a lyrical and inexorable tragedy (set, possibly, in modern Greece), that examines the nature of choice a man has over his own self-control, and asks how a person is meant to carry on in the face of awful events for which they are solely responsible, events that then enfold, with tragic consequences as sure as the rise and fall of the tides that flow throughout this beautifully metaphorical play.

Our Review:

26 March 2009

A powerhouse performance by Jonathan Pryce just about keeps Athol Fugard’s strange 1975 play afloat, although the audience has to work hard to figure out the metaphor in the story of a reclusive engineer who’s left the city and taken up with his housekeeper Sophia (Anne Reid) and niece Lydia (Holliday Grainger) in a remote village.

There they are visited by civic official Danilo (Alex Lanipekun), who wants Dimetos to return to full civic employment, not waste his time being “a handyman for the peasants.” But Dimetos is wrestling with his demons, and the idea of the beauty of work for its own sake. And he’s tragically obsessed with the attractive young Lydia.

Pryce and his director Douglas Hodge have removed any sense of this being a play about Fugard’s South Africa. Instead, it’s a play about the skill of the artisan, the expressive formulations of hands using materials, clay, rope or pulleys. Bunny Christie’s bare b...

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Latest User Review

Gareth James - 5 May 2009:

This is such an odd and complex play, I cannot honestly say I understand it. However, it was often intriguing, occasionally breathtaking and held my attention for (most of) it's two hours. The producton values are of the usual Donmar high standard, but its the performances that impressed me most - in particular a terrific stage debut(?) from Holly Grainger and probably the finest performance I've seen Jonathan Pryce give.....and it certainly challenges you and makes you think! Better be challenged here than bored at Madame de Sade....

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