Reviewed by: Foreplay Loren Kruger Foreplay. By Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom, after Arthur Schnitzler's Der Reigen (aka La Ronde). Market Theatre, Johannesburg. 5 September 2009. More interested in contemporary society than in the anti-apartheid legacy, Paul Grootboom is very much a post-apartheid playwright. After writing for local soap opera, he achieved notoriety for the graphic sex and violence in two recent plays, Cards (2005) and Relativity (2006; co-written with Presley Chweneyagae, star of the Oscar award-winning Tsotsi). Like Cards and Relativity, Foreplay premiered at the State Theatre in the capital Pretoria/Tshwane before transferring to the Market Theatre. Roughly based on Schnitzler's century-old drama about sex and hypocrisy among characters identified only by their social roles, Foreplay continues this trend of dramas of sex and violence with a merry-go-round of encounters between unlikely partners who are consumed sometimes by guilt or resentment but always by lust. As against apartheid-era theatre that sought to challenge the state by dramatizing its agents of violent oppression, Grootboom disavows such serious intent, asking ironically in his director's note in the program: "What can be more fun than watching ten people having sex with each other, talk about crap, and give each other STDs?" Despite his disclaimer, however, the mention of sexually transmitted diseases could not but remind the local audience that, in this country with one of the highest AIDS infection rates in the world and one of the highest rates of rape, all too often sex equals death. The set and lighting (by Wilhelm Diesbergen) remained spare and dark throughout, occasionally featuring a bed or an upholstered chair, but always framed by security fencing that also could signify the perimeter of an outside shebeen (bar). Despite the absence of bourgeois accouterments, some protagonists resembled Schnitzler's figures quite closely, as in the tryst between a fat and nervous middle-aged woman (Ntshepiseng Montshiwa) and a student or "spoilt young man" (Mandla Gaduka) who interact in English. Most, however, took on a local look and sound, mixing their English with vernaculars like North Sotho, Grootboom's home language, and drawing on stories in the news as well as in high and popular culture. The sex-worker in the first scene seduced not an actual soldier, but a robber who had stolen the soldier's money and uniform. The flamboyant preacher (Sello Zikalala, also playing the fake soldier) who seduced a schoolgirl after preaching forgiveness for sexual lapses recalled not only Jimmy Swaggart, whom he quoted directly, but also a long line of hypocritical preachers on the South African stage known for their melodramatic though forceful exaggeration. The apparently naive girl persuaded to have sex in exchange for "help with school" tellingly recalled similar representations Click for larger view View full resolution Koketso Mojela (schoolgirl), Sello Zikalala (preacher, foreground), and Excellentia Mokoena (sex worker, background) in Foreplay. (Photo: Ruphin Coudyzer.) [End Page 453] of students forced to exchange sex for school fees, whether fictional, by artists like the late painter Trevor Makhoba and by soap opera, or fact, documented by news and social research. Playing this tricky role, the slight, though seasoned Koketso Mojela impressed even viewers familiar with her television roles, such as a cynical secretary in the caustic parliamentary satire 90 Plein Street, with her ability to perform naiveté and worldliness in compelling juxtaposition. Shadowed by the looming facts of widespread sexual abuse, Foreplay managed nonetheless to maintain author/director Grootboom's sense of irony. Mimicking Dr. Schnitzler's clinical portrayal of lust that levels class and age distinctions to leave individuals at the mercy of their reflexes, each scene portrayed a tryst between a lustful and an initially unwilling participant, which began with resistance, feigned or panicked, moved through a dance of thrusting and yielding, and ended in consummation signified by performers blowing and popping bubble-gum balloons. While the repetition of deliberately formulaic gesture kept the audience at a cool distance at the end of each scene, the acting style within scenes varied considerably—sometimes being merely verbose, sometimes captivating spectators despite their evident discomfort. In the first case, Grootboom allowed the playmaker as his alter ego to indulge in the...