THEATRE IS NO only alive and pumping in South Africa; it is world class. Take a gander at Ashley Dowds in one of this country’s contemporary classics, Paul Slabolepszy’s The Return of Elvis du Pisane, and you’re got the picture: gritty, funny, tragic, universal and something that will bring you to the brink of tears in all its dimensions. Its season at Montecasino in Gauteng ends tomorrow, but another begins in Cape Town, at Theatre on the Bay from 30 May 2024, and it’s a cultural imperative of immensity.

A tale of boyhood dreams and Wicks bubble gum, cowboy movies and the King of Rock ‘n Roll himself, the work was first penned in 1992, with a character set in 1970s Hillbrow, Johannesburg. It was rocking suburb of apartment buildings filled with anti-establishment youths, and all their untrammelled dreams. And, curiously, 32 years down the line, it has turned into a period piece, which is about the lingo of being young and white in Modderfontein, South Africa and all that this implies.  Armed with political edge and the power of “maybe”, it’s a riveting work which has only ever been performed by Slabolepszy himself.

Enter Ashley Dowds on the scene in the role, and the energy shifts. Akin in his boyish good looks and physicality to the American actor Robert Sean Leonard, who played Wilson in Hugh Laurie’s series House MD, Dowds is a competent, oft underrated performer. Now, in his late 50s, he comes of age with monumental success, in a role where there is no ensemble cast and all eyes are focused on him and his interpretation of Eddie, the boy who needs escape. And he crackles with authenticity.

It’s a tale woven along the precarious lines that Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 has. The to-ing and fro-ing of remembering horror and returning to try and re-remember it without the trauma. Like Tony Miyambo’s The Cenotaph of Dan wa Moriri or Jennie Reznek’s I turned away and she was gone, the story is not one dimensional but offers Eddie’s whole world and its context into its messy mix.

It’s a long play – or maybe just feels like one because it forces you to so deeply digest such a complex set of values all in one sitting. that when the climax comes, you feel changed in your understanding of Eddie. In your understanding of what dreams get made of. Set on a pavement in 1970s Hillbrow, with the stencilled words of the street name as evocative of the smell of the suburb’s air at the time, it’s a hefty, crunchy slice of nostalgia, but one that has stood the test of time.

Like Slab’s Saturday Night at the Palace, this work should be compulsory viewing/reading for all young South Africans, to grab a slice of what this country was, to taste a piece of sophisticated writing at its wisest, and to understand the role of violence in all our lives. But above all, it should be mandatory for the level of the performance that takes historical theatre and makes it upfront and personal.  

• The Return of Elvis du Pisanie is written and directed by Paul Slabolepszy and performed by Ashley Dowds at the Pieter Toerien Theatre, Montecasino, Fourways, until 26 May and at Theatre on the Bay in Cape Town from 30 May to 15 June 2024.