Dream of the Dog

Synopsis

KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, 2009. Richard and Patricia Wiley, an elderly white couple, have sold their farm to developers. It is the evening before they are due to leave. Unexpectedly, one of their former black workers, ‘Look Smart’, turns up after a fifteen-year absence. Why did he leave all those years ago? What has brought him back? And why has he come now? Full of repressed violence, Look Smart no longer resembles the eager-to-please farm boy Patricia thinks she remembers so fondly. Now he has an agenda: to confront the events leading to his sudden departure from the farm, but, above all, to force Patricia to confront her true self. It soon becomes clear that he and Patricia have very different memories of the past and an equally subjective view of the present. Dream of the Dog is - in microcosm - a story of South Africa’s emerging democracy, challenging notions of truth and reconciliation, justice and revenge, memory and history. An unflinching look at the twin mantras of the post-Mandela age - reconciliation and forgiveness - asking whether they are indeed ever actually possible between black and white...

Our Review:

30 April 2010

Coming from the Market Theatre, Johannesburg, but set in the KwaZulu Natal nearer Durban, Craig Higginson’s 80-minute play is one of the best post-apartheid new dramas we’ve seen in London.

It has the considerable bonus of Janet Suzman giving a highly-charged and deeply-layered performance as a farmer’s wife, Patricia Wiley, packing up before retiring to the coast while her husband, Richard, declines into senility, and the property is taken over by a development agency.

The play hinges not only on upheavals in the country but also on the various crises of this particular day: Bernard Kay’s full-chested, violent Richard is cracking up, talking of dead children; and the Wileys’ former cabin boy, or farmhand, “Look Smart” (real name P Y Nkosi, and played with real focus and ferocity by Ariyon Bakare), turns up in a suit.

He’s from the agency, having left the farm fifteen years ago. He is also smoldering with grievances, and it’s a mark of ...

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Latest User Review

Catherine Cartwright - 21 May 2010:

Seeing this production has revived my enthusiasm for going to the theatre. This is the best play I've seen on the London stage for years. The sensitive performances from a well directed cast were gripping to watch from start to finish. This is a timely produced play (with South Africa about to host the World Cup) which focusses on the scars of complicated country. I think everyone should see this very moving and perfect production....

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