THEATRE: Guy Willoughby
THE honeymoon is over, and a year down the line all of us=20 voters — the slapgatte as well as the sentient — should=20 start subjecting the new political order to sharp scrutiny.=20 That’s the premise of You ANC Nothing Yet, Pieter-Dirk Uys’=20 fine new revue at Cape Town’s Dock Road Theatre, and his=20 timing could not be better.
Uys’ unique one-man turns have been with us for almost as=20 long as Pik Botha’s, and during that time Uys has gone from=20 late-night subversive to prime-time TV host(ess). At times=20 he’s nearly lost his satiric edge — the pressure to turn=20 Evita into a lovable mascot, a cuter sort of Casper de=20 Vries, has been great — but his sheer intelligence and=20 sense of humour have so far kept him on the bent and=20
Like so many others, Uys was thrown by the FW-era for a=20 while; but on present showing, he’s found his feet and has=20 a thing or two to teach some other apartheid-era artists,=20 presently dwaaling around for fresh ideas.
So what’s fresh about this show — what gives it its zing=20 and flavour? It’s the notion that the ANC in government no=20 longer deserves reverence. Uys points to could-be=20 corruption, pomposity and self-enrichment in high places=20 with a light but pointed touch, and the resultant laughter=20 which rings around the room confirms he’s in tune with a=20 coming mood.
It would be easy for Uys to slip into an Old South African=20 cynicism, to reinforce in his white and middle-class=20 audience the worst kind of prejudices about blacks-in- charge. It is to Uys’ credit that he avoids such simplistic=20 impulses; rather, he invites his audience to think about=20 the built-in dangers of political power.
The format of the show is familiar — Uys as host takes us=20 chattily through a bevy of character and costume-changes,=20 ending with (of course) Evita Bezuidenhout. Along the way=20 he dusts off some old crowd-pleasers — PW Botha railing=20 from the Wilderness, a revamped and querulous kugel, an=20 affirmatively-housed coloured bergie — but largely the=20 show is peopled with a newer cast.
Not all of these are successful; his Jay Naidoo and Frene=20 Ginwala are the merest approximations. What interested me=20 was the increased assurance and relaxation of Uys’ own=20 persona on stage, sans the pan make-up.
The Uys who narrates the show displays a breezy intimacy=20 and a cocksureness with his audience that is quite=20 infectious. True, the relatively small venue helps, but=20 perhaps in time we’ll be as entertained by this relaxed,=20 pungent raconteur as by the wigs and hats that bring Pik,=20 PW and Evita into being.
These days, instead of the endless members of Mrs=20 Bezuidenhout’s family, Uys gives us the troubled Mandela=20 clan — Nelson (a mercifully short sketch, there to make=20 one disturbing point about wavering presidential authority)=20 and, of course, that occasional deputy minister, Winnie=20 Mandela herself.
She is the highlight of the show. Uys’ Winnie doesn’t so=20 much look or sound like the original, as suggest some=20 compelling essence about her — her ambition, her drive,=20 her creepy attractiveness. Here, Uys hasn’t worried too=20 much about exact mimicry; yet with broad, confident=20 strokes, he has got his woman.
He could be honing a new kind of satiric mimicry here, one=20 that doesn’t rely on exact likeness; an expressionistic=20 school of mimicry, perhaps?
Uys uses a few simple props to suggest a recurrent setting=20 — a tatty squatter camp — in which his politicians are=20 canvassing votes for the municipal elections. The satirist=20 thus lightly reminds us of the real powder-keg issue of the=20 future: land and security of tenure. With economic wit, Uys=20 suggests too that his squatters are as sceptical of their=20 new rulers as anyone else.
You ANC Nothing Yet is lively and stylish entertainment=20 that will irritate, tease — and raise uncomfortable=20 questions. It offers abundant evidence that the fiftyish=20 Uys is a force to be reckoned with. He’s right in there,=20 listening and watching, and taking notes. And the powers- that-be could do worse than take a note, too.Poor response=20 to JCI plan