Last year I saw Rats! directed by Sylvaine Strike and starring Lionel Newton at the Auto & General Theatre on the Square as part of the Arts Alive Festival. This delightful trio of pieces is threaded together by a theme of greed, but the title Rats! only worked for the absolutely magical rendition of Robert Browning’s famous poetic account of The Pied Piper of Hamelin. The second piece is a satirical look at the colonial legacy by Nick Warren. The final piece, Jasmine’s Jewel, is by Lionel Newton himself.
Lionel Newton. Picture by Ruphin Coudyzer
The already excellent work has been revived, reconstructed and renamed so beautifully as Agreed. It is a play on the greed of human beings, but more than that, it is an acknowledgement of the concord between the two performers. Lionel Newton’s one man piece has become a two man piece. The vignettes remain three monologues performed by a single actor, Lionel Newton, but the magic is in the multi-disciplinary duet between Kutlwano Masote on cello, and Lionel Newton. The music is so perfectly integrated into the three pieces that if I had not previously seen, and enjoyed, the show without it, I could not have imagined the show ever working without it. In fact the music takes a really good production and turns it into a great one, one deserving of the standing ovation it received from the opening night audience.
Lionel Newton and Kutlwano Masote.
Lionel Newton is an institution in South African theatre. He is a truly extraordinarily gifted actor, one who has honed his craft with precision until it cannot fail to touch any but the most uninterested of people. Working with Kutlwano Masote the first piece is enhanced by an original composition by this charismatic cellist using leitmotifs for the Mayor, the Constitution and, of course, the Pied Piper himself. Masote plans to turn this into a Pied Piper suite in the future.
Lionel Newton in the Pied Piper position. Photograph by Ruphin Coudyzer
Nick Warren’s piece, The Handover, looks at the current political sphere where nothing has changed for the better since 1994. Only the people doing the grabbing are different. The humour of the carefully chosen music adds to the bite of the words of the script and the magnificent portrayal by Newton.
Newton’s own work, Jasmine’s Jewel, is a delicate local musing on a global scale. Once again Masote’s clever choice of music complements the script and acting so well that the performances are truly intertwined, each being dependent on the other for the spellbinding entertainment they create.
Lionel Newton and Kutlwano Masote
Lionel Newton, Sylvaine Strike, Kutlwano Masote – all three are at the top of the professions. All three are incredibly creative. All three are wonderfully talented. Put them together and the work they’ve produced is polished, slick, entertaining, throught provoking, relevant and really worth seeing.
Agreed runs at The Laager Theatre, The Market Theatre, until 2 February 2014.
What I do, see, hear, eat and drink. 
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