Dream Of The Dog
by Craig Higginson
by Craig Higginson
Dream of the Dog is a powerful exploration of a white couple's confrontation with their past as a young black man returns to unravel the truth behind a traumatic event on their farm in post-apartheid South Africa.
About The Play
About The Play
Time Out Critics’ Choice
★★★★★ Five Stars The Daily Telegraph
★★★★ Four Stars Time Out
★★★★ Four Stars The Independent
Selected for Time Out Best of the Year 2010
Janet Suzman – Academy Award®, BAFTA and Golden Globe award nominee, and winner of two Evening Standard Awards for Best Actress – stars in the European premiere of the acclaimed new South African play
THE SELL-OUT FINBOROUGH THEATRE PRODUCTION TRANSFERED DIRECTLY TO THE WEST END
Trafalgar Studios 2, Whitehall, London SW1A 2DY
Wednesday, 26 May – Saturday, 19 June 2010
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, shortly after the millennium. Patricia and Richard Wiley, an elderly white couple, are packing up to leave the farm they’ve sold to developers. Their preparations are interrupted by the arrival of a young man – ‘Look Smart’ – who used to be one of the black workers on their estate until he disappeared fifteen years ago.
The day before ‘Look Smart’ left, something terrible happened on the Wileys’ farm. But everyone has a different memory of the dreadful event and their own role in it. As the different accounts of their shared past are unravelled, they are all forced to confront their own versions of the truth – with shocking ramifications for their lives today.
Dream of the Dog is a richly textured and complex story of South Africa’s emerging democracy, and its continued negotiation with its past in order to find a workable identity for its future. Critically acclaimed in South Africa, this new play takes an unflinching look at the twin mantras of the post-Mandela age – reconciliation and forgiveness – as it asks whether black and white can ever live together peacefully.
Dream of the Dog received its world premiere in South Africa in 2007, playing at the Grahamstown Festival and the Market Theatre, Johannesburg, where it was nominated for four Naledi Awards (South Africa’s equivalent of the Olivier Awards) including Best New South African Play.