Mandela's Land features the British premieres of two of the most significant South African plays of the post-apartheid era: one a violent drama about military atrocities, the other an atrocious drama about domestic violence. While you wouldn't expect a double helping of contemporary South African plays to be an easy ride, for those who associate the country's drama with the elegiac lyricism of Athol Fugard, this nerve-shredding evening is as comforting as a boot against the throat.
Aubrey Sekhabi has been dubbed the township Tarantino, and his grim wife-beating extravaganza, On My Birthday, is a savage combination of raw, unmediated violence and alarmingly undercooked chicken. In the central scene we witness the distraught heroine, Lebo, ripping poultry to shreds and flinging bits of carcass at the floor. She has just been abused, kicked and raped by her drunken lout of a husband.
Staged violence, particularly against women, needs an absolutely solid context in order to become tolerable - David Mamet's Oleanna comes to mind as a play in which the brutality is disgusting, but at least you are shown where it comes from. Sekhabi's construction, however, is brutally crass. Lebo casually asks her husband to purchase some knives in the first scene, so you are already anticipating the bloody conclusion, though nothing quite prepares you for the machete-wielding mania in store.
Far better crafted is Paul Herzberg's the Dead Wait, partially based on the author's own experiences as a conscript in Angola. Those drafted to fight were obliged to sign a gagging order, and it is with great courage that Herzberg exposes the trauma now. He presents a shattering parable of a young soldier forced to carry a wounded ANC rebel on his back, and, as soon as the bond of empathy forms, is ordered to shoot him.
Jacob Murray's production revolves around a trio of magnificent performances. Oliver Dimsdale gives a searing portrayal of the frightened young conscript with the full weight of moral responsibility on his shoulders. Wylie Longmore - who excels in both plays - exudes dignified gravitas as his bleeding burden. And Herzberg bravely assigns himself the unsympathetic role of a sadistic bush fighter, to which he brings a terrible, psychotic intensity: which seems all the more alarming for having been witnessed first hand.
· Until October 26. Box office: 0161-833 9833.
