Theatre review: The meeting

I recently saw a play in the Market Theatre in Johannesburg, called 'The Meeting'. Before I went for the play, I had no clue where it was located. Once I started driving there, it turned out to be in the CBD (Central Business District) part of town, which is known to be its not so safe part. I always feel a bit unprepared for driving in that part of the city, but I had booked the tickets, so turned up anyways. Once there though, it was a different experience. The whole area around, called Newtown was quite vibrant and full of people chilling and shopping in the mall while some had come to visit the museums around. Another example of how perceptions can be different from reality:).

The theatre was quite small and felt very cosy with a few seats surrounding the stage in three directions. The play was quite short, barely an hour or so. And I hadn't read about the play before, so it was a complete surprise for me. Sometime in between the performance, I figured out that it was about a hypothetical meeting between Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King - two of the greatest and most popular leaders of the Black movement in the US, both of whom had a completely different approach to how they could get equality for their people.

And the play was an enactment of how a meeting between them would have gone, if these two men ever met. The meeting started out with arguments and disagreements;  anger and shouting. You could see how both men who were so committed to their views would think that only their approach was the right way forward, while the other's wasn't.

But then towards the end, when they both cool down, they both accept that both of them were fighting for the same things in the long run. Their meeting ends with both accepting that the other would not change his view, both respecting that, but also wondering out aloud how things would have been different if they could have seen eye to eye, what could have been...

There were only three cast members, with the two main ones doing a great job. I did find their American accent lacking, but I guess since the actors weren't American, it wasn't as surprising. A very interesting play, and a definite recommend. It would be nice to see a happier play in South Africa too though:).