The Kings of the World

As an artist, it must be wonderful to have the skills to write a play, act in it, and direct it simultaneously.

All are fabulous talents in their own right, and sound like a killer combination. The problem is that sometimes it takes the eyes of an outsider to poke holes in the package and suggest changes that the man in the middle is too close to see.

That’s the sense I got with The Kings of the World, a play written by, starring and directed by William Harding.

It’s the story of two young men trying to get on in the world despite not even knowing which direction to head in. At times it manages to portray the bleak future facng youngsters of a certain age with no clear purpose, and there are some nice lines and dark thoughts about how to keep going when there’s nowhere to aim for. Harding plays David, a peaceful young hippy type who has been travelling and trying to find himself. He’s at his sparse home one night when his old friend Harry arrives unexpectedly. Harry (Kaz McFadden) is a wily, seething mess of anger and impotence with no prospects at all. When he hears that David has the tenuous chance of some work, he instantly wants in and asserts his way into becoming David’s agent. A third character is Jefferson (Chris Djuma), David’s thick and goofy flatmate.

The characters don’t venture far from their broad stereotypes, but Harding is a likeable, confident actor while McFadden packs a menacing violence into his performance. Djuma grins his way through most of his lines, and leaves you thinking he’d have liked more substantial material to get his teeth into.

Harding isn’t a novice writer, although this play feels like the draft of something that’s itching to be better. It treads an uncertain line between comedy and drama, not funny enough for the former and not quite weighty enough for the latter. Then it’s pushed over into farce with the two main actors pacing in frantic circles around the furniture as they bicker and squabble.

The production is being funded by the Department of Sports, Arts & Culture’s Incubation Programme, which lets young emerging professionals enhance their skills by being mentored by seasoned professionals. Every role, from the stage set and costume design to the lighting, sound, stage management and production management has been filled by both a mentor and a mentee, and it must be a great experience for them to work on a show with a live run at the theatre.

Here Harding is making his directing debut under the mentorship of theatre veteran Robert Whitehead. The style is heavily influenced by Harding’s spell at the Fortune Cookie Theatre Company, where he worked with director Sylvaine Strike, and the physicality of the work strongly reflects Strike’s influence. But here the exaggerated antics feel unnatural and overdone, and by the end the incessant pacing is adding little except a degree of silliness.

To be fair, the dialogue itself does venture into the surreal at times, as the young men cook up a half-baked plan to make some money. I don’t know if it was written with a target audience of youngsters in mind, or if the men are supposed to be on drugs, but since green tea is the only plant that gets a mention, maybe not. Either way, the inane bickering and crazed ideas grow petulant and juvenile.

Gradually the arguments build up to moments of potential violence, and here the plot crackles with a tension that temporarily elevates the action, giving you a taste of the more grown-up production it potentially could be.

The Kings of the World runs at the Market Theatre until February 16. Tickets from www.webtickets.com or 011 832 1641