Husband catches wife in bed with another man. Man swiftly does a runner in his pants. Husband takes revenge. How? By forcing his wife to treat her lover’s abandoned suit as an honoured live-in house guest. Of course.
Such is the promisingly odd premise at the core of Peter Brook’s ‘The Suit’. With clothing racks serving as buses, windows, doors, and furnishings implied merely by gesture, the performers relentlessly bound through a performance area which is typical of Brook’s ‘Empty Space’, weaving a tale of adultery and manipulation against a backdrop of a black community’s struggle against apartheid in 1950s South Africa.
Bluesy music is provided by onstage musicians who frequently take on minor, slapstick roles throughout. Brook’s choice of music reflects a clever observation of the parallel ethos between the spirit of blues and that of the marginalised black community in 1950s South Africa, a theme that is brought home most poignantly by a gut-wrenching monologue relating the grisly tale of a black musician who challenges this unjust regime.
However, for a play that revolves around masochistic manipulation amid hideous tyrannical rule, a sense of danger is somehow evaded. Though making no hesitation towards confronting audience members; handing out shots and dragging them onstage, one always feels perfectly safe and unabashedly entertained, the latter which in hindsight, sits a little bit ill. The above mentioned monologue is really the only substantial allusion to the play’s context. Whilst I appreciate the benefits of not having a point shoved down your neck, the near relentless humour (musicians donning elaborate hats to become gushing female house guests for the near final scene) comes across as a little excessive and unnecessary.
An exciting concept that unfortunately, though enigmatically and entertainingly performed, does not quite deliver. 3/5
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