London Road

Our humanity is best, and perhaps only, expressed when we do the unexpected, such as showing compassion to a stranger or, conversely, being unnecessarily cruel and malicious to a friend or family member.

London Road focuses on the former, revealing how a random act of kindness can enrich people’s lives beyond any expectation thereof.

Although this two-hander focuses on kindness and compassion and is therefore essentially a ‘feel-good’ play, it does not succumb to sentimentality and is not in the least saccharine, it is barely sweet.

That is not to say it has not a number of heart-tugging moments – the strings predominantly pulled by the brilliant Robyn Scott who plays the feisty octogenarian Jewish grandmother Rose – but one does not feel manipulated into an emotional reaction. The tears and laughter Scott and Ntombi Makhutshi harvest are pure, partly because it does not moralise and partly because it is firmly set within a recognisable reality. A reality determined not only by the physical location of London Road, Seapoint, but also by the emotional and circumstantial situation of the characters within it.

Widowed Rosa, whose children have both emigrated, was probably a member of the communist party back in the day and has spent much of her life volunteering at the union offices and generally trying to improve civic life.

Stella is a conscientious young Nigerian woman who makes her living selling party drugs to high-flying businesspeople while her cheating husband is back in Lagos.

We know there are women like Rosa and Stella living within metres of each other, not only in Seapoint, but in transitional neighbourhoods the world over. That circumstances bring these two women to forge a friendship is not unlikely, especially given Rosa’s penchant for sticking her nose into other people’s business in a helpful sort of way.

Nicholas Spagnoletti’s dialogue is effortlessly natural and Lara Bye’s direction provides transitions so smooth they are barely noticeable, not allowing the audience’s focus to slip for a moment.

Scott, a young woman, does an absolutely superb job. Not for a moment do we fail to perceive Rosa as a loveable, unsentimental octogenarian busybody. Simply due to the nature of the roles, Makhutshi’s star is ever-so slightly dimmer but there is no doubt her skill is equally responsible for the illuminating light this play casts on the rich possibilities human relationships hold.

The three Fleur du Cap’s and the Golden Ovation award this play has won are well deserved. Having debuted at the Kalk Bay theatre in March 2010 and now running at the Fugard Theatre for the second time, it is an example of South African theatre excellence. – Steve Kretzmann

 London Road plays at the Fugard Theatre Studio until December 17. Bookings are through Computicket or the box office on 021 461 4554.

http://westcapenews.com/?p=3423

Nicholas Spagnoletti’s ear for dialogue makes for a wonderfully accessible script and Lara Bye’s direction is flawless in its simplicity.  Together they’ve struck gold in bringing this award-winning spectacle to life.

London Road is, in essence, a very simple play spanning the course of several months in the lives of two female characters; the elderly Rosa (Robyn Scott) and the much younger Stella (Ntomboxolo Makhutshi). The two live in the same block of flats on London Road in Seapoint and, despite their very different personalities and histories, they share a common thread.

Rosa is a Jewish widow whose children have emigrated to Australia and Israel. She battles with memory loss and old age but keeps busy by being very involved in the lives of those around her. This is how she meets Stella, a young Nigerian woman who shares her dark sense of humour. Stella is strong, street smart and illegal in the country.

It’s easy to analyse the many messages and critiques but this play subverts the standard ‘critical’ notion. Instead of inviting the viewer to read into the narrative, the narrative allows you to read into yourself. And yet this ‘mirror’ is not a harsh one.  While the play makes many insightful commentaries on a number of personal and socio-economical subjects, the lightness of touch and the bubbling sense of humour are pervasive throughout.

The performances of the two first-class actresses are so convincing that we couldn’t believe that the elegant Robyn Scott was the same elderly woman when we saw her in the lobby of the Fugard after the performance.  On stage she embodies every inch, gesture and speech pattern of an aged soul and commands the audience with an exuberant flair of unashamed humour and fragility. Equally impressive was Makhutshi’s embodiment of the Nigerian Stella. She cracked the accent and had particular Nigerian habits such as lip-smacking down to a tee as well as a powerful composure which truly added to the realism.

This award-winning play is a perfect piece of theatre, and while its escapism is delightful, its message – to cherish those important to you – is loud and clear

Faheem abz Abrahams
London Road runs at the Fugard Theatre 22 November – 17 December 2011.

http://www.whatsonincapetown.co.za/post/review-london-road-at-the-fugard-studio/

SHOW: London Road – Robyn Scott walks onto the stage as the aged Jewish grandmother Rosa (pearls, cardigan and all) and without saying a word has the audience in stitches.
CAST: Robyn Scott and Ntomboxolo Makhutshi
DIRECTOR: Lara Bye
VENUE: Old Mutual Theatre on the Square, until March 19

Everything about her performance is perfection – from the tight clutching of her purse to  her comical facial expressions,  her undulating voice which repeats words rapidly in succession and the way her body twitches involuntarily.

Equally spectacular is Rosa’s new friend and neighbour Stella (played by Ntomboxolo Makhutshi), who Rosa eventually figures out is a Nigerian drug dealer.

Written by Nicholas Spagnoletti, London Road is a play  inspired by the Jewish and Nigerian stereotypes that propagate the promenades of Sea Point in Cape Town.

Only the characters that Spagnoletti presents through  endearing vignettes are much more than stereotypes – they are both delightfully flawed and funny in their own right and they both find an unlikely (but lasting) friendship in one another.

A table,  two chairs, the odd tipple from a glass bottle and the frequent cup of tea are the only props on stage, yet  the fullness of Scott and Makhutshi’s performances  make the sparse stage setting  irrelevant.

London Road  hits home because it has a tendency to take the audience member down their own path of self-reflection about family, friendship, loss and death.

There are some very poignant and sad moments, but tying these together are a series of absolutely hilarious moments, from Stella revealing the sordid details of her dodgy clients to rude card games and  enjoying the “simple and fantastic joys of people watching” with Rosa’s invasive binoculars.

Subtle dialogue, loaded with meaning and emotion, has half the audience in tears at  the end.

No wonder then that both Scott and Makhutshi have been nominated for Fleur du Cap Awards in Cape Town for their performances.

This marvellous combination of an excellent script and great direction by Lara Bye is not to be missed. – Natalie Bosman

http://www.citizen.co.za/citizen/content/en/citizen/lifestyle-features?oid=176125&sn=Detail&pid=40&Memorable–mesmerising–magnificent

“London Road” by Nicholas Spagnoletti is a simple story of two ladies interacting in their block of flats in Sea Point. It’s a run-down area where Rosa (Robyn Scott) represents the old-guard Jewish contingent and Stella (Ntomboxolo Makhutshi) is an illegal Nigerian immigrant.

How their lives come together is shown through a series of vignettes played out against the appropriately plain stage set of a table and two chairs.

What makes it remarkable is the astonishing way Scott – who turns out to be quite young – transforms herself into the ageing, abandoned, but undefeated Rosa. She’s an amazing actress, giving us a saggy-jawed, slack mouthed, frizzy-haired pensioner who ages visibly as time moves on. Scott makes Rosa feisty and opinionated, makes “Australia” sound like a swear word, annoys you with a grating accent, but still makes you want to reach out and hug her.

She’s utterly mesmerizing, and the script hands her some wonderful one-liners. Rosa’s children have emigrated, her husband has died, and she’s all alone, passing the time by spying on the neighbours and occasionally pulling her once-powerful social strings to help anyone she can. Yet she tells wicked tales of her glory days, and still puts the fear of god into unscrupulous slumlords.

It’s a script full of poignancy softened and spared from sentimentality by rich and perfectly timed humour. You don’t feel sorry for Rosa as her breath and her energy slip away, you feel admiration for a character that many people in the audience either recognise or could become.

Spagnoletti has written a very real story, and it’s been enhanced considerably by the actresses and director Lara Bye who brought their own experiences and insights to the script. Bye has brought it together beautifully so everything flows perfectly as the scenes, times and moods evolve.

Rosa brings the wisdom of age into the troubled and tough life of Stella, and Stella responds by opening up to this little old lady who most would shove out of the way as a meddlesome busybody.

Makhutshi maintains a convincing lilting accent and that air of reserved independence that comes from being on the sidelines of society. She too is a formidable presence, but there’s no way she’s going to shine against the brilliant luminosity of Scott.

Now go, book some tickets – and call your mother.

- Lesley Stones

http://www.thedailymaverick.co.za/article/2011-02-25-london-road-where-disparate-yet-alluring-characters-meet

The circumstances are familiar. Two women meet when the one attempts to help the other after her room has been ransacked in their block of flats.

They have little but their loneliness in common, but that is enough to form a bond of friendship that will change both their lives.

Rosa is an old inhabitant of London Road. She isn’t ageing well and with both her children out of the country – her daughter is living in Israel and her son has emigrated to Australia – she has no one looking out for her or adding tenderness to her last years.

Stella is much younger and an illegal immigrant from Nigeria who makes a living by selling drugs to well-heeled clients. Hers is a flimsy existence, but one she clings to because she cannot return home to her errant husband. He has already damaged her for life.

These two lonely souls strike up an unlikely friendship as they watch out for one another and keep one another company.

Both the playwright and the director have cleverly used all the stereotypical themes, but avoid playing the expected hand.

Stringing together a handful of snapshot moments, the characters are allowed to breathe and develop their own rhythms which gives an unusual exuberance to the play.

From xenophobia to displacement, ageing and Alzheimer’s, Aids and recreational drugs, the changing neighbourhood that used to be home, from slums to property booms, all are thrown into the mix without lingering and rehashing familiar arguments yet painting a very particular South African story.

It is the two women and the way they view the world and dance through their days that becomes the heart and soul of the play. That and the extraordinary performances, especially of Scott who has the more showy part.

Scott has assembled a lost soul that gladly reaches to anyone out there with such aplomb, one immediately takes her to heart. Her speech patterns and quirky movements become part of Rosa’s being as she toddles around her life and that of Stella’s in a most endearing fashion. She has no one who can say goodbye or even know that they have to.

“They think I’m going to be old forever,” she says heartbreakingly of her children.

Stella is there to listen and as such, Makhutshi has a much harder route to travel to find a way to climb under the skin of her character, but she does with an exterior harshness that turns mushy when her friend is in trouble.

It is in their reaching out that the two women touch their audience.

It is an intensely sad story, yet told with great tenderness and joy as the women find solace in reaching out and discovering the friendship of the other.

- Diane de Beer

http://www.iol.co.za/tonight/long-lonely-road-is-less-daunting-with-a-friend-1.1034053



IT has been said of director Lara Bye that everything she touches, turns to gold. And her latest acclaimed production at the National Arts Festival is no exception.

Everybody is flocking to London Road which has found its way into the Top 20 grossing productions at the Festival so far, something that in previous years has been mainly the turf of stand-up comedies.

Stripped to its bare bones, the play written by Nicholas Spagnoletti, is an intimate glimpse on growing old, loneliness and the healing power of friendship that unfolds between two women from vastly different backgrounds living in the same block of flats in London Road, Seapoint.

Stella is a Nigerian woman living in a converted storage room while Rosa, an elderly Jewish widow, lives in a flat on the fifth floor from where she partakes in the “simple and ancient joy of people watching” through her binoculars.

Their relationship is based on honesty. They simply do not have the time to hide anything from each other.

And this makes for hard-hitting theatre circling the core of our human condition like the seagulls on Rosa’s beloved promenade.

The health of Rosa, whose children are living in Israel and Australia, is rapidly deteriorating and her short-term memory is starting to fail.

All her friends are either “dead or dilly” and she confesses that after her husband’s death, the “evenings were eternal”.

Stella and Rosa are performed by two of Cape Town’s leading actresses – Robyn Scott and Ntombi Makhutshi. And they do not disappoint in the least. The 37-year-old Scott, who has recently earned a Fleur Du Cap nomination for best actress for her role in Elizabeth –- Almost by Chance a Woman, goes through a masterful transformation to become the elderly Rosa. And we are not just talking about the skillfully applied make-up and the curly orange-red wig of a Jewish Seapoint “tannie” .

She lovingly creates a Rosa – from her shuffled steps to the faraway fear in her eyes when she tells Stella that she is “petrified” of death. Makhutshi who has been in action on stage in Iago’s Last Dance and Die Storie Van Die Vertaalde Mense, delivers an equally powerful performance as one of Seapoint’s community of immigrants.

Interestingly enough, the play also touches upon the urban and moral decay of places like Seapoint: the arrival of Nigerians and Congolese, and elderly people like Rosa who have no choice but to stay behind.

Bye is a master in the theatre of suggestion.This is reflected in the seemingly simple set. The table and chairs which are the only props against a clever black backdrop, are not just any old table and chairs. According to her, she and renowned theatre designer, puppeteer and performing artist Craig Leo, searched high and low before they finally found the “perfect” table at Milnerton market. She gently distills London Road until only the essence is left. You will laugh –- and you will cry as the uniting universal themes are shown. Truly beautiful.

http://www.theherald.co.za/entertainment/article.aspx?id=580186

LONDON ROAD

(Pic by Christine Gouws: Nthombi Makhutshi as Stella and Robyn Scott as Rosa)

Excellent script, great direction and stunning performances. (Review by Caroline Smart)

London Road is currently one of the hot contenders for a Standard Bank Ovation Award and rightly so. It’s certainly creating a buzz here at Festival. Sometimes pre-hype – everyone telling you it’s the most fantastic thing they have seen – can put a show at a disadvantage because you go expecting the impossible.

Not so with London Road which offers an incredible performance from 37 year-old Robyn Scott as the outspoken and insatiably-curious 78 year-old Jewish granny Rosa whose life is quietly but inexorably drawing to a close. Putting in an equally impressive performance, and supporting Robyn to the hilt, is Nthombi Makhutshi as the drug-dealing Nigerian who becomes Rosa’s closest friend and confidante.

Speaking from experience, I know the rigid control one has to exercise when playing a character far older than oneself. And in Robyn Scott’s case, she has Rosa’s breathing disorder to contend with – and this she handles flawlessly.

From the moment we meet the wheezing Rosa as she wanders into Stella’s flat to find out about a burst pipe, she holds the audience’s attention with every gesture, ironic snort, gutsy laugh or vague reminiscence. Sometimes the thought processes take a little time as she gazes into space waiting for the memory to click in. Then there’s the delightful “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no” – just in case you didn’t catch it the first time!

Rosa is an example of so many elderly people living on their own or in old-age homes in South Africa with their children having emigrated and very few friends still left alive. But Rosa’s a fighter – she grabs life with both hands. Still appreciating a beautiful body, she invites Stella to use her binoculars to peer at the young man in the flats opposite. And there’s nothing a good tipple won’t cure!

It’s definitely Rosa’s play but Nthombi Makhutshi is a perfect foil as the feisty Stella who is big-hearted and begins to care for her new friend with compassion and affection. The conversations they have are filled with fun and laughter and the occasional argument is soon dissolved – usually through some caustic comment from Rosa.

National Arts Festival Director Ismail Mahomed sums it all up perfectly: “A beautifully written script performed magnificently by two very talented women and directed with such beautiful eloquence. This play raises the bar on new South African writing for theatre.”

Raising the bar on writing, it certainly does. Working from Cape Town playwright Nicholas Spagnoletti’s initial script, director Lara Bye further developed the work for the stage through improvisations in rehearsals. One comes out of the show moved to tears in many cases, but also with a sense of deep fulfilment that you’ve seen a special piece of theatre. – Caroline Smart

http://news.artsmart.co.za/2010/06/london-road.html