Foto: Canva
The show must go
It is no coincidence that politicians resort to the diversionary antics of the travelling theatricals. The makeshift stage is artfully suited to both the tricks of high office and the gambols of farce, often indistinguishably. These entertainers have in common the goal of illusion, the beguiling of an audience and transportation from reality. No country is free from these troupes of patch-knees, swaggering japes and lolling buffoons, donning either the stiffly pressed clown suits of Savile Row or those colourful shirts of their famous progenitor, in the hope of an osmotic transfer of stature. The painted faces of these shadow men are always seen, but never fully revealed, under the roving spotlights of the production.
The chorus of Greek tragedy has for years been crying, “We see what’s coming, we see what’s coming,” over and over, from the stalls where muted reviewers scribble their notes. But now, with the spotlights all gone – out of power, stolen or broken – those onstage resort to firecrackers and incendiaries for illumination and to entertain their audience, to keep their bums in the seats. The matches burn to nothing, new deliveries are blocked by ravens pecking up the macadam, or burned to keep warm or to dance around, or whatever. And a part of the audience quietly slips away, looking for a new show, for a new showman. Not new ideas, though, just louder fireworks, a beret perhaps, a little more hate, always fulfilled by hymns and soliloquies from the old scripts, printed as they were with one hand, while the other grasped the fluttering banner of revolution.
The dialogue is, of course, always the same. Familiarity breeds familiarity. No change required. The teleprompter stands ready, illuminated by the last candle. And even when the story fails, as it must when the outcome is predictable, readily and already known, it remains essential to repeat the lies, to ignore the chorus and to plod steadily the well-worn trail to the end. The path is smooth, the words statement-ready, and what’s left of the audience, enthralled by the blather, can put away thoughts of the hungry dogs cowering in the foyer.
As a last desperate device to hold them close, the male supporting actor abandons his suit and reappears stage left in a bright yellow revolutionary T, stretched to its limit, made in China, sloganised on the West Rand, and oddly enough, inconsistent with his Louboutin loafers. He shuffles the moves, raises a half-clenched fist, shouts the slogans, repeats some of his lines from act one, adds a few more out of sequence from act two, denounces WMC and promises a brighter future, before the teleprompter candle blows out. To fill the darkness, he breaks into an odd selection of battle cries, singing cheerfully of blood, of the old, vanquished enemy, and earnestly promising victory in a long-forgotten war. A mysterious gust of fresh air has entered through the stage door, but it stops the action for only a moment; the door is closed, and the prompter candle is burning once again. The words and the songs continue in the soporific comfort of the familiar, stale air.
But now it is time for the lead. The crowd stopper, the main attraction. The big man, exploiting his Falstaffian foil and basking in the yellow reflection. With an urbanity of image, the finest Hebridean lambswool bowed with Italian silk, the picture is complete. His clear grasp of the script seems, at first, to have consigned the miscues and fumbled lines to the past, to his innumerate predecessor, and reveals that there might be sense in the world, that the show can be saved. But as the words run on and on, even the audience perceives that this, too, is still the old script, scratched out of the deep grooves of repetition, superficially comforting, but ultimately meaning less and less. At last, just before the crowd is lost and restless, and without much ado, the main attraction exits stage right and is gone into the night. No questions, no reprises, no encores of revolutionary song, just a faint, lingering whiff of Old Spice. Gone, hermetically sealed from the audience.
Unperturbed and after a final round of struggle chants to rouse the faithful one last time, the supporting, too, finally takes his bow, pulling in his baker’s dozen and waving his stubby little arms. The audience, subdued and diminished, yet somehow still content, shuffles out into the cold, keeping close and ever watchful of the dogs. The promise of a new dawn will surely bring back the lights, chase away the dogs and keep the children safe. While they trudge home in the darkness, the crew undoes the stage for the next town, and the actors slide into their big, shiny cars, heading for food and shelter at the local five star, sipping on Double Blue and ginger ale while wrapped in their heated leather seats.