Review: Beautiful, emotionally charged writing and performance, all my ex-lovers are dead

Dara Beth’s all my ex-lovers are dead is a “mostly-autobiographical reflection on love, desire, poor life choices, and how many cups of tea it takes to wake up and smell the coffee” is on for a short run in the Baxter Masambe (December 10-14, 2024). Award winning Qondiswa James takes on the role of Echo, the young protagonist (early 30 something, I would say), who takes us through the landscape, the frayed ends of past relationships. Each relationship lingers as a body of memory – reverberating with regret, hurt, smells, whiffs and images. One freaks out when one can’t remember the details of someone you loved deeply, even if it ended badly. Beyond the loss of the relationship, the loss of memory is perhaps more profound.

Beautiful, emotionally charged, writing by Dara Beth in this deep dive into what “love” may embody and may mean and how the bits of past relationships linger, when one should have/could have moved on, whatever that means. The flummoxed Echo grapples with the messy endings of relationships which invariably leave ex-lovers sifting through the rubble; grasping onto the intangible of what was and what could have been; what one thinks one remembers.

Food, especially potatoes and linguine is conjured up vividly in the narrative and a packet of chips is consumed on stage. As human beings we yearn to fill ourselves up and we devour accordingly. The protagonist talks about a Woolies meal which is hot and warms one up but does not necessarily provide sustained nourishment. But the meals hit the spot, don’t they.

Qondiswa James delivers a knockout performance, slithering through and draping across the pale blue velvety couch. The velvet is like a nest, cocoon, womb, a container, wrapping its protagonist. Staging and direction by Beth is tight and focussed. Soundscape design (Denise Onen) includes a delicious eight minute voice note/confession.

Talking of delicious, taste is a pungent leitmotif.  “There is always a bit of bitterness”, in the wake of the ending of a relationship and of course endings tend to lag on, long after the break-up. “Some people leave a bad taste and we don’t realise that until they have gone…” ruminates Echo. “I am not bitter – anymore… I think bitterness is a good thing”. This invited much laughter from the audience.

Echo muses that perhaps “bitterness” may be seen as “a clue – a prompt”. My take is that there is the invitation to transcend and transmute the bitterness into a self-awareness which ultimately will lead one to being able to love again and love one self. There is the recognition that sometimes pieces of past relationships, the “heart” of the relationships will always be carried, even when the other person is dead –metaphorically – and physically in some cases. The nuanced text will resonate with people of all ages, not just young people and is inspirational in terms of its call to take ownership, of bitterness of losses, to somehow find humour and sustenance and get a sense of an ‘ending’; of ‘closure’. Even if, we are just affirming and talking to ourselves.

✳ Qondiswa James performs in all my ex-lovers are dead by Dara Beth, Baxter Masambe, Cape Town, December 10-14^, 2024. Pic: Mark Wessels/The National Arts Festival. Pics supplied.