LA BELLE EPOQUE - Theatre Review

WHAT: La Belle Epoque
WHEN: 10 - 20 July 2024
WHERE: Theatreworks (Acland St)
WRITTEN BY: Future D. Fidel
DIRECTED BY: Budi Miller
DESIGN BY: Shana Mackay Burns
LIGHTING BY: Tim Bonser
SOUND BY: Jack Burmeister
PERFORMED BY: Nelly Kouakou, Tariro Mavondo, Effi Nkrumah, and Mike Ugo
STAGE MANAGED BY: Jade Hibbert

Effie Nkrumah, Mike Ugo, and Nelly Kouakou - photo supplied

Every so often you see a piece of theatre which makes you shout out to the world - Yes! This! This is what theatre is all about! For me, La Belle Epoque, currently playing at Theatreworks is one of those pieces of theatre. It has everything. It is current with all the weight of history behind it. It is urgent, and painful, but lets you laugh all the way through...until it really matters. It is a call to action lest we forget.

La Belle Epoque is the tale of a colonised Belgian Congo lived through the generations of a king and told through the eyes of the true descendent, Chris (Mike Ugo). Chris is a refugee - yes, the Congo is still a terrifyingly dangerous place to live - living in Melbourne with his boo Isioma (Effie Nkrumah). Isioma. Isioma is helping her friend, Tarisai (Tariro Mavondo) and her sidekick Bob (Nelly Kouakou), make a documentary about the history of the Congo as part of a university assignment. They have enlisted Chris to give an authentic Congolese voice to the show although they don't really understand why that is important. In the meantime, Chris and Isioma are also trying to plan a life together. Spoiler alert - one of the funniest scenes in the play is when Chris is brought home to meet Isioma's parents.

This all sounds very straight forward, and perhaps a bit dry right? Let me tell you, La Belle Epoque is not dry at all! Future D. Fidel (writer) has an incredible gift of storytelling. He weaves time and characters so that they blur with perfect clarity. One minute we are in a Melbourne living room in 2024, and within the space of a few lines, hilarious character work, and a lighting shift we have travelled back in time a century or more. Just as easily Fidel can pull us right back into the present with a script problem Tarisai has to solve for Isioma. Just as easily he can make us laugh in one moment with a Laurel & Hardy style routine between Tarira and Bob, and then slip us into a tense struggle for survival by a king turned slave. In Fidel's writing the dark is as dark as the bright is bright.

These transitions are not easy and one of the best things director Budi Miller has done is to keep the stage and staging clean and clear. Along with the artful use of projection, it is the clarity and dynamic breadth of Nkrumah's performance in particular which pushes the narrative forward and makes sure we know where and when we are in this epic tale.

I mention Nkrumah because she is truly amazing, but the rest of the cast are strong too. Ugo's monologues are powerful and unflinching as he speaks Fidel's words and experiences and history. In fact, the final moments of this play packs a massive punch as it becomes clear suffering is nowhere near ending in the Congo any time soon. One of the clever aspects of this show is Fidel's observations about the through line of progress on the fate of the Congolese. In the 19th century the people suffered because of a need for rubber for motorcars. In the 21st century the suffering is going to continue because of the need for cobalt for electric vehicles. We need to think about how we save the people as we also strive to save the planet.

There are so many layers to La Belle Epoque and yet all of the strands in the loom are clear, concise and insightful. In this play the whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts. It is not perfect - there was not enough time or money for perfection - but perhaps the rawness of this production allows the ideas and concerns to flow so much more clearly out to the audience. This play is so very much more important to see than I could ever effectively communicate.

4.5 Stars