The Centre for the Less Good Idea is an interdisciplinary incubator space for the arts based in Maboneng, Johannesburg

FEBRUARY 2019 | FOR ONCE | MCGUFFIN

McGuffin is an interdisciplinary performance piece created and directed by New York-based visual artist and director Deville Cohen. It was first performed at The Centre for the Less Good Idea in February 2019 as part of the For Once programme.

“Impulsive and unabating, our drive to escape and move forward is unrelenting. Starting with great conviction and intensity, the stimuli, motivation, and intention mutate in the journey,” reads a note towards the process of McGuffin.

Titled after the fictional and very often film-centred plot device of the MacGuffin – an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but ultimately insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself – McGuffin sets out to pursue and harness this aforementioned “drive”. The performance follows three performers through a bristling labyrinth of kinetic, architectural sculptures, both manipulated by the performers, and informing their movement through the space – a high-speed chase through an imagined cityscape. Elaborate video projection lends a further imaginative and theatrical presence to the performance, which weaves between PVC skyscrapers and cardboard alleyways.

The performers – Thulani Chauke, Tushrik Fredericks and Nonku Phiri – make use of sharp choreography throughout. At times they are frantic, scaling walls, veering around corners and diving for cover between rubbish bins. Then, they are decisive and deliberate, cracking safe codes and washing away their traces with forensic precision. The result is a heady mixture of frenzied, tactile theatre and abstract cinematography, an assemblage of fast-paced action and considered narrative that is both familiar and unpredictable. It is in the intricacies of this unremitting pursuit that McGuffin is located.

– David Mann

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