Anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
That striking proverb comes to mind while watching “The Suit,” the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord’s haunting piece at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. This simple tale of a cuckolded husband makes clear the price of revenge.
Directed and adapted by the legendary Peter Brook (“The Mahabharata”) in collaboration with Marie-Hélène Estienne and Franck Krawczyk, it’s based on a story by the late South African writer Can Themba.
Set during the apartheid era, “The Suit” concerns the tragic chain of events that occur when the happily married Philemon (William Nadylam) unexpectedly returns home and finds his gorgeous wife, Matilda (Nonhlanhla Kheswa), in bed with another man.
The lover flees in his underwear, leaving behind his elegant, well-tailored suit. And so Philemon, who prides himself on never resorting to violence, exacts a unique form of punishment: He forces his wife to treat the suit as an honored guest. By setting a plate for it at the dinner table and taking it for walks in the neighborhood, it becomes a vivid symbol of her infidelity.
“It’s like the critical breakdown of an infinitely delicate mechanism,” Philemon says of his wife’s betrayal, while she takes solace by engaging in a flirtatious dance with the empty suit.
Things come to a head at a tea party attended by their friends, when Matilda’s humiliation has tragic consequences.
Performed on a stage that’s bare except for a few chairs and empty clothes racks, the piece includes music performed by three onstage musicians who double in minor roles. The actors occasionally break into song, including a moving rendition of “Strange Fruit” performed by the husband’s friend (Jared McNeill).
Granted, “The Suit” loses focus as the story goes on, and the attempts to make the tragic tale an allegory of South African repression feel forced. But it exerts a formidable power, thanks in part to compelling performances by its leads. Nadylam is superb as the husband whose cruelty is all the more chilling for its forced casualness: “I see we have a visitor today,” he says at one point of his sartorial interloper.
The suit that figures so prominently onstage may be empty, but “The Suit” is filled with emotion.