FRINGE REVIEW: "Kafka's Ape" is intensely moving theatre
A stalwart of Perths’ Fringe Festival season is the Blue Room Theatres’ Summer Nights program. There is something comforting about the Blue Room Theatre - the knowledge that you'll be served by the same guy behind the bar and the woman that hands you your ticket will be writing the show you'll be raving about next year.
And the show I’m raving about this year is Kafka’s Ape.
Kafkas’ work had much to do with holding up a mirror to the world and reflecting the absurdities of humanity. Kafkas’ Ape continues this tradition. Based on A Report to The Academy this is the story of Redpeter, an ape who through brutal training and mental anguish becomes not quite man, but not quite ape either. Instead, he is the evolving man, moving ever forward.
I was immediately struck by the intensity of Tony Bonani Miyambos’ performance as Redpeter, the eponymous ape. Tony is only the second black man to take on this role. In Australia, we have lived through the absurdity of our media engaging in a serious conversation about whether or not calling a sportsman an ape is an act of racial vilification. In Belgium as recently as 50 years ago Congolese families were displayed in a human zoo. His race is central to this role, and the play takes on layer upon layer of meaning because of it.
I knew that my white voice could not be the only one present in any review of the play. I could appreciate the universality of a story which explores the ways we are confined by the expectations of society. I do not and will not ever fully understand the resonance this play will have with black audience members. I wanted to hear more from Tony and his experience of embodying Redpeter over the last 5 years.
Tony is a South African actor and theatre-maker who has been touring Kafka’s Ape in festivals around the world. When we meet, he is clutching a navy hat that reminds me of no-hat no-play school recesses and planning a sun-safe trip to the beach. He is a softly spoken and considered person whose powerful stage presence softens into the kind of gentle charisma that has me wanting to be his friend within minutes.
“The nuances of the play change according to the time and place we are performing it in,” he tells me. “In Australia, we draw out this moment - it’s only a small one, where the teacher is burning the apes fur with his pipe - but we draw out the heat of it, the psychosis of the burning animal” Throughout our conversation he uses the plural, referring back constantly to the visionary director and writer Phala O. Phala had for the work
Miyambo seems to revel in the intense physicality of his performance. "I am looking after myself, but it is a very physical role. Many performances and adaptations of this work use prosthetics, but we didn’t want to go down that route and besides we didn’t have the money to do so. We wanted to emphasise the physicality of the ape, and the way this is different and similar to man”
“My ape is about the swinging and the constant movement, and over the last few years, the ape has aged with me. I've realised that he is an ape that sometimes cannot always scratch a spot on his back that he used to.”
I could see how he could embody the physical aspects of the ape and slip out of the role once the performance was finished, but one of the moments that pierce your soul in this work is the scream of the caged ape.
“This is down to actors training,” Tony tells me “the training to separate myself from the character. I can put my hand into the burning fire of hell, and pull it out and say to the audience, see I am not harmed.”
Ultimately Kafkas’ Ape is a story of empathy, says Tony. “I couldn’t do this role every night, for so long, if it was about judgement.”
Kafkas’ Ape is playing at Blue Room Theatre until the 25th of January. Tickets are available here.
Five stars.
