February 12, 2013
The SuburbanFebruary 6, 2013
By Walter J. Lyng
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Although Waiting for the Barbarians takes place in an unnamed empire during an unspecified time, the lessons it espouses seem to have been inspired by mistakes made by past governments and, at the same time, serve as warnings to current regimes against making the same mistakes in the future. Where the play truly excels is in the way it sardonically lampoons the foreign policies of most Western nations, which inevitably boil down to an 'us vs. them' mentality. Barbarians takes that potentially dangerous way of thinking and demonstrates the perils that await any empire foolish enough to be so insular.
Playing at the Segal Centre until February 17, this adaptation of the novel by Nobel Prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee tells the story of a magistrate (Grant Swanby) in a frontier town on the edge of the aforementioned Empire. Although the Magistrate lives a relatively peaceful existence, everything he knows is shaken to its core upon the arrival of the military, which both visually and thematically calls to mind various fascist parties, right down to the full-length leather coats. The military is there to respond to a supposed threat on the part of the Barbarians who live outside of the town in the surrounding wilderness. Although the Magistrate is skeptical about the legitimacy of this threat, he complies with the military's orders at first, allowing Colonel Joll (Nicholas Pauling) and co. to perform acts of unspeakable torture upon the captives.
When the Magistrate strikes up a relationship with a Barbarian girl (Chuma Sopotela), however, he is thrust into an odyssey that forces him to examine his own role in the sordid ordeal and just who can truly be identified as the Barbarians.
A co-production with Mopo Cultural Trust out of Cape Town, South Africa, Waiting for the Barbarians represents the Segal Centre's first international theatrical collaboration. Although the cast is mainly comprised of actors unfamiliar to Montreal audiences, the quality of the performances will quickly make their unfamiliarity a moot point. Adaptor and director Alexandre Marine has done a fine job in ensuring that these actors work just as well collectively here as they undoubtedly did in their home country.
Craig Leo's set and costume design, meanwhile, ties everything together allowing for fluid transition between the play's principal action and the various fantasy and dream sequences scattered throughout. Transforming in a similar way to the magistrate himself, the one main set piece of Barbarians is slowly altered, so that what was once obscured gradually becomes a much more clear vision of the horrors of a senseless conflict.
For more information, visit www.segalcentre.org