Throwing Bones

Sojourn Theatre does some of the most ambitious work in town, and
with their new site-specific work Throwing Bones, the ante is
higher than ever. The show sounds a little random, if not downright
woo-woo: South African healing traditions? Portland? Health care? There
will be dancing?

The show is based on research conducted in South Africa by guest
director Maureen Towey. South Africa has one of the highest rates of
HIV in the world, and health care is provided both by doctors and by
sangomas, or traditional faith healers.

Throwing Bones begins as a loose assemblage of dances,
monologues, and scenes that jump from South Africa to Portland. Dr.
Gordan (James Hart) is a doctor from Michigan doing a three-year stint
at an AIDS clinic in South Africa. Noni (Kimberly Howard) is one of his
patients, and is also an AIDS relief worker herself. Tata (Victor Mack)
is a sangoma, and it is to him that Cara (Hannah Treuhaft), a
white South African, goes when afflicted with a sickness that no
Western medicine can explain.

There is enough cultural and medical cross-pollination here to write
a dissertation, and throwing two more characters into the fray
initially seems forced. Portlander Agatha (Gretchen Corbett) goes to
South Africa after her daughter, Kelly (Courtney Davis), dies from
cystic fibrosis. Why would a Portlander go to South Africa in order to
cope with her grief?

The explanation, when it comes, feels a bit facile, but the show’s
evocation of the culturally prescribed rituals and expectations
surrounding mortality is so astute that plot points almost cease to
matter: Agatha brings her grief and skepticism to South Africa so that
Westerners can see their own beliefs refracted through the lens of
another culture.

The show is heavily dance and rhythm based, and there are beautiful
images here, as characters frantically try to control and delineate the
human body, and bodies just keep eluding their efforts. Throwing
Bones defies expectations at every turn, treading on the sensitive
territory of mortality and culture with unfailing intelligence and a
candor that’s both startling and welcome.