WHEN TWO FICTIONAL strangers come together in the middle of nowhere, you can always expect a denouement that takes you somewhere else. And more often than not, it is into the throes of a new relationship and into each other’s arms. But what happens when Aiden Stromberg (Paul Slabolepszy) encounters Joanna Devlin (Bianca Amato), in the Free State town of Parys, is something completely raw.

You may feel the kind of goosebumps that you may have felt if you were in the first audience of Slabolepszy’s Saturday Night at the Palace in 1982. You know instinctively that whatever is coming from this encounter is life changing, but not simple. And you’re never ready for how the play unfolds. This new work by Slabolepszy takes you on a path of such darkness, it might change your values and make you look at love and life and all that the platitudes allude to but cannot utter with a deeper eye. It will be onstage at Montecasino until 12 July 2026 and should be marketed as mandatory viewing.

It’s a play that stands alone in its boldness in representing the Free State of South Africa as a sanctuary, remote from political landscapes, history or values. An eagle owl cries in the night. Stromberg sits catatonic with his empty drink. The lighting is crass, viscous and yellow, like the traditional toasted cheeses advertised on the blackboard menu in coloured chalk. You can almost smell the presence of the plastic tablecloths, the folk that have eaten and drunk in this space.

It’s way after closing time, and the little mostly-disused karaoke bar in the sticks of a town that used to be a metropolis but isn’t any longer, reeks of tiredness. Devlin’s the manager. The staff have long gone home. Her accent from Derry in Ireland and her matter-of-factness in dealing with this clearly drunk guy’s car keys demonstrate a world-weariness and an understanding of patrons of this nature.

There’s a bnb up the road, she says. It’s in walking distance, she adds. Drink some strong black coffee to get your head right. But nothing’s ever as simple as all that. He doesn’t go. He cannot. The weight he carries must out. It’s breaking him as he sits there.

It’s a weight that bears the kind of monstrosity that cannot be told with ease or a clean chronology. It’s about love and loss and big promises which are devastating and seismic to keep. It’s about holding on to the things that matter and the memories of falling in love on a light tower in a music festival. It’s about a man called Thabiso who does what is necessary and understands without a need for words. And it’s about a little girl named Megan who needed to weather the unthinkable in order to be able to grow into a person.

The meeting of Aiden and Joanna in the wee hours in “Paris with a y” is the kind of encounter that enables a story to be wrenched, stinking of blood and guilt, of self-recrimination and what-ifs, from a place of deep brokenness. And as Aiden begins to tell his story, Joanna responds with snatches of her own horror. Her own compulsion, her own admission of sins in the face of the world. As with many a tale cast over the counter of a bar in an arbitrary setting, between strangers, the soreness in the telling of it, renders the space sacred but never precious, scarred but not the end.

If you have ever watched the suffering of a loved one, heard of the devastation of illness, known the helpless anger of a situation where there is abuse and violence and innocence and bloodshed, you will understand the nerve centre of this story. If you’ve ever loved with the implacable honesty and openness that makes you vulnerable to complete destruction, you will, too. Bring tissues. It’s a haunting tale.

Slabolepszy stands alongside Athol Fugard with his theatre-writing pen. This work follows his inimitable style of being intrusive and witty and scalpel like, in unpicking the South African discourse from the human melodrama, to reveal something unique, horrifying and deeply moving.   

• Midnight in Parys is written by Paul Slabolepszy and directed by Bobby Heaney. Performed by Bianca Amato and Paul Slabolepszy, it is onstage at the Studio Theatre, Montecasino complex in Fourways until 12 July 2026.