on your Uys
Some say Afrikaans is a dying language, but the Klein Karoo Festival shows that there’s still plenty of life there, writes Andrea Vinassa
Afrikaans theatre is no stranger to controversy or progress, and if you imagine that the Klein Karoo Kunstefees in Oudtshoorn is some boerekonsert, you might be right and you might be dead wrong.
You’ll see self-parody in pieces like Ons Spore Loop Ver: Die Ramp, die Konsert en Ander Fratse in Donker Afrika. Told in the form of a variety concert, the play is set in 1960, the year of the Coalbrook mine disaster when 437 people died. Director Gerrit Schoonhoven and players like Gys de Villiers and Elize Cawood affectionately take the mickey out of the Afrikaners’ penchant for sensationalism and tragedy. They dig up old tunes by the Briels, the Vos brothers and Jim Reeves.
You will also see cross-dressing (Parra- noster, Hie’ KOM Ek with Johan Bothma), a juvenile fascination with the penis (too many to mention), and dirty underwear in Die Skandaal 2 which has already had rave reviews in Cape Town. This satirical farce showcases the comic talents of actors like Andre Odendaal, Susan Danford, Deon Opperman and Hannes Muller. Don’t forget the rugby and see Peet Pienaar, Paul van Wyk and Francois Toerien in Vuil Spel. I must say, for a dying language and a dying art form, there’s still an awful lot of life left here.
None of the Oudtshoorn participants will deny that it’s all part of a crusade to save theatre by making it more accessible to ordinary folk. Lizz Meiring is co-writer and director of Die Spook van Donkergat, an Oudtshoorn-bound pantomime featuring ghosts and other things that go bang in the night. She sums it up rather neatly, in a way only Afrikaners can: “It brings the braaivleis brigade and the Boere bohemians together. The arts are deformalised without compromising quality.”
While capitalising on the mystique of the Karoo, the festival organisers also realise that as part of the Eastern Cape, the region is also one of the poorest. Festival manager Karen Meiring runs through the demographics: 48 000 coloureds, 14 000 whites and 3 000 blacks. Clearly the oft- neglected coloured community is in the majority and the festival’s community projects are created largely for their benefit. Community newsletters, to establish a cultural network in the region, are also translated into Xhosa.
There is much to be preserved and nurtured in the region, but Meiring is encouraging educational input from outside via initiatives like the Book Project, whereby visitors bring all their old books with them for redistribution to libraries and schools.
There is a pilot festival from March 22 to 25 during which trips are made to 16 surrounding towns. Four coloured theatre companies introduce children to theatre and music. This year the National Symphony Orchestra is visiting schools to explain the inner workings of an orchestra. “Many of these children have never even heard an orchestra, let alone seen one. Then later, we bus them into Oudtshoorn free of charge to see the orchestra in full swing.”
Initially the festival was dogged by a lot of scepticism, especially among the ranks of the “enlightened Afrikaner”, sponsored as it was by media giant Naspers. Lizz Meiring refused to attend the first Klein Karoo Arts Festival because she would not be associated with a festival which defined itself along narrow ethnic lines. “But I was wrong. It’s not a whites-only festival and, although you’ll have a guy arriving with a chop in his hand, the image is not that of a bunch of Afrikaners in safari suits.”
Like a Nando’s franchise, productions are divided into three categories, mild to hot. “So no one can say they weren’t warned. But, you know, we underestimate audiences. The best way to describe it is to say that enough innovation is combined with the familiar.”
But Afrikaans theatre has gone way beyond the boerekonsert years ago, and Afrikaans actors have been at the vanguard of progressive thinking for decades. In fact, this year you can experience the work of that potent triumvirate of the Boere-avant- garde: Chris Pretorius, Breyten Breytenbach, Marthinus Basson.
This year’s theme, “Afrikaans oor ‘n Honderd” (roughly “One Hundred Years of Afrikaans”), aludes subtly to the centenary of the Anglo-Boer War, but doesn’t force anyone into a patriotic corner. They are free to look forward or backward or ignore the theme totally. “We didn’t want to emphasise the war. Wars are not to be celebrated,” says Karen Meiring.
She is never defensive about the festival’s Afrikaans flavour because she doesn’t have to be. She cares about the survival of theatre, not necessarily the survival of the Afrikaans language. “We just want to say that Afrikaans is a jol. That’s all.”
The citizens of Oudtshoorn know a thing or two about old-fashioned hospitality. “It is a pleasant, supportive environment and the people who live here are not greedy. Actors can afford to bring productions here and still find comfortable accommodation,” says Lizz Meiring.
According to Karen Meiring, it grows by 25% each year and this year they expect 100 000 guests. Since ostrich farming has taken a bit of a dive, the citizens of Oudtshoorn have found that opening a guest house is a good way to make a living.”We want the festival to be a stimulant for managements. Essentially it should function as a market for managements to find productions that will work well in their theatres back home.”
Stalwarts of the theatre like Sandra Prinsloo, Patrick Mynhardt, Wilna Snyman, Eric Nobbs, Pieter-Dirk Uys, Antoinette Pienaar, Amanda Strydom, Danile Pascal, Susan Coetzer, Brumilda van Rensburg and Alexa Strachan will be out in force. Playwright Pieter Fourie’s Ek, Anna van Wyk gets a make-over by radical director Marthinus Basson. Fourie was also instrumental in bringing Marius Weyers to the festival for the first time. Weyers will be taking on Dostoievsky’s The Underground Man.
Worth ferreting out too is Susanna, die Geliefde, a piece compiled from the writings of poet Antjie Krog and historian Karel Schoeman, about the life a legendary Voortrekker woman, Susanna Smit.
The festival allows theatre practitioners to experiment where they would otherwise be more cautious. Ian Roberts, who has shown an interest in musicals before, directs Amorassimo!, an operatic cabaret which mixes Figaro with Freddy Mercury, Belafonte and Boccelli. In a new venture, the Klein Karoo Pops, the National Symphony Orchestra plays “evergreen” Afrikaans songs, assisted by everyone from Natanil (who conducts for the first time) to Cape Town opera singer Virginia Davids, Laurika Rauch and David Kramer.
And well-known accordion player Nico Carstens has teamed up with some Cape Town jazz musos to form Afrikwela. They make a unique sound which he describes as a mixture of “Bo-Kaap goema, innovative jazz, traditional Afrikaans music and kwela”.
Surprisingly few plays deal with the Boer War, but the lecture series features academic heavyweights like Herman Gilliomee and Ampie Coetzee, Stellenbosch philosopher Johan Degenaar, Frederick van Zyl Slabbert and ex-Robben Islander Neville Alexander discussing the Boer War. Fransjohan Pretorius reveals, through his research of Boer women’s diaries, how the war was really fought. Van Zyl Slabbert acts as referee in a discussion, with authors Breyten Breytenbach, Andr Brink, Hein Willemse and academic Elize Botha, about the achievements in Afrikaans literature over the past century.
A wealth of incredible poetry and literature has been produced in Afrikaans in the last 100 years and contemporary artists are finding new value in the works of NP van Wyk Louw and the poet Boerneef. Stellenbosch rock group Valiant Swart have composed the score and are singing Boerneef’s poetry, while the State Theatre Dance Company dances a new version of Van Wyk Louw’s epic poem Raka with Melody Putu and Mandla Mchunu.
Two productions take a humorous look at technology and Y2K: Magda Beukes and Trix Pienaar play themselves in J2K: Milleniumknalle uit the Computer! and !Kliek, a mini musical by Andre Stolz.
The problem of gangsterism in the Cape is tackled in Joseph Mitchell’s Is Maa Net Nogga Laaitie and Die Gangsters, which analyses this particular scourge against the revelations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Ten years after the legendary Volvry Tour, which was banned on some university campuses, the alternative Afrikaans rock musicians reunite in a nostalgic open-air concert entitled Kaktus Is Volvry. The Volvry tour of April and May 1989 was more than merely a tour, it marked a political and cultural turning point for Afrikaners.
Organiser Dagga-Dirk Uys says: “Afrikaans is liberated. We are in the New South Africa and now we are playing on the main festival… that’s a victory.” This year’s concert also introduces new artists like Akkedis, Gert Vlok Nel, Ras Tamie and the Warriors, and Brasse van die Kaap. Uys is willing to organise a repeat of this one- off concert, scheduled for March 27, in other centres. Not to be missed is the Big Concert with Sonja Herold and Patricia Lewis sharing a stage … you gotta love it.
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