by their fruits
When love comes to find you, will you honour it?
When it gently knocks on your door, will you let it in?
And when love tries to leave, will you speak? Will you ask it to stay, just another night?
Will you decide that it is worth the journey into yourself to find the match to keep the fire ablaze? Or, will you act as the protagonist in a tale as old as time - a love lost in translation. Our parents' histories playing out in front of our eyes. Throats stuffed with desires that were never spoken, a timeline that was meant to be but never was.
by their fruits, a psychological romance written and directed by DKfash asks us who we want to be when love arrives.
Two characters, Her (Reba Ayi-Sobsa) and Him (Ivan Oyik) journey through some of the hardest things that life has in its arsenal to throw at us - grief, job loss, pregnancy and heartbreak - and while they may love the bones of one another, in the face of a shaken foundation and words unspoken, our characters have to own their truth; sometimes, love alone is not enough.
From the opening scene to the closing of the curtains, by their fruits is poetic in both language and movement. The script, floating between prose and poetry, opens us up to the intimate world that has been created through rose coloured glasses by our two characters. A cohort of inside jokes, dreams for the future and fears about the now, constantly flit in and out of the language spoken between the pair.
The movement, expertly choreographed by Dkfash, acts as its own kind of language for the entirety of the play. While their mouths may be saying one thing, the flow of their bodies and the design of the elements of physical theatre, show you what they really mean - if only they weren’t so scared to say it.
Through both of the characters, the audience is tasked with seeing themselves. Two bodies filled with love, longing, quiet loneliness, unseen vulnerabilities and unmet needs trying to find their way home, hoping that they might get the chance to open the door together.
by their fruits explores love and the difficulties that come alongside it with tact, ingenuity and creativity. In a world that implores us to hold our emotional cards close to our chest, this play invites you to throw those cards to the wind. A landslide for DkFash and the Initiative team.
by their fruits is playing at Theatre503 until the 30 November 2024.
★★★★☆
By Jojo Dixon
