Every year, at the end of September, the N12 to Potchefstroom becomes congested. It is the exodus of the Afrikaners to Aardklop to soak up some culture and ‘see some shows”.
The Potchefstroom festival has become a seasonal must for culture vultures and presents an opportunity to view some of the best Afrikaans theatre in just five days.
Even though light entertainment in the form of Steve Hofmeyer and Kurt Darren draws huge audiences, and humorous plays without too much depth are usually sold out long before the festival starts, the past few years have seen more and more productions pushing the boundaries.
Increasingly, artists ask questions about Afrikaner identity and where Afrikaans theatre is heading. The discussions and plays at the festival have become a platform for political ideas and reflections on South Africa’s political situation.
Even Eugene Terre’Blanche features. No, he did not show up to read his prison poems in Potchefstroom, but he was the icon of a docu-play that looked back at his life. The ‘great man” (if you take SABC3’s word) did not give his stamp of approval on the play and said he would not even try to see it.
The play, Terre’Blanche, questions how much of a celebrity Terre’ Blanche really is and how much of what makes the man was simply created by the media. Was the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging leader simply the victim of a press who couldn’t get enough of the material he was supplying?
Politics was also the topic of the award-winning cabaret, Swartskaap. The hilarious show won the AngloGold/Ashanti-Smeltkroes award for best new Afrikaans stage text with its satire on what the perfect politician looks like.
It was politically incorrect and gave a fat middle finger to popular perceptions of how the ideal politician should act.
Pappa Basson tries to manufacture the perfect politician, a man with the heart of a philosopher and warrior and the crown jewels of a Zulu prince. But things go awry and the product turns out too close to Tony Leon and Marthinus van Schalkwyk to be allowed to roam the streets.
Texts such as Terre’Blanche and Swartskaap show that Afrikaners still love their politics, but have learnt to take themselves less seriously. Terre’Blanche is the comical anti-politician, a ‘white” Nelson Mandela who went to prison and rode out in triumph on his (high) horse.
At the same time that Terre’Blanche was commanding storm troopers in Ventersdorp, only 50km away at Potchefstroom University, Johannes Kerkorrel was accumulating a fan base of his own: young Afrikaner students who were looking to rebel against the establishment. They became the Voëlvry Junkies, who took up the cause against PW Botha and sang about love across racial barriers.
But what has happened to those wannabe revolutionaries? Kerkorrel is dead and Koos Kombuis is a middle-aged oom who performs at concerts organised by suburban créches to raise funds for new swings.
A play that questions whether these revolutionaries of the late Eighties and early Nineties ever really grew up is Eet Alles, the runner-up for the AngloGold/Ashanti-Smeltkroes award. It asks: Were they shifting borders or were they merely white rebels looking for a cause?
In one of the scenes a voëlvryer tries to take some of the credit for changing South Africa, while another sarcastically answers that a bra’ named Nelson Mandela mistakenly got all the credit.
Did these alternative Afrikaners make any difference to PW Botha and later FW de Klerk? Did De Klerk release Mandela because South Africa was facing a revolution in white suburbia? Were the white kids ready to burn their parents’ houses and cars and take to the streets?
Not likely. They ‘defeated” the establishment by holding rock concerts and smoking lots of dagga and by sabotaging the sound equipment at an Elize Botha speech. They were never in danger of having their ‘balls electrocuted”. Yet, they were deemed enough of a threat to the security police for an informer to be sent into the group.
But what about the future of the Afrikaners and Afrikaans? Will they eventually become extinct as so many prophets of doom preach? The unusual Skroothonde, set in a real scrapyard at night, painted a dark picture not only of the Afrikaner, but of the world in 200 years time. The full moon (the timing was perfect) against the industrial area in Potchefstroom gave the setting an eerie feel that no lighting technician could have mastered.
In this production the Afrikaner has moved on in the year 2204 and sadly there are not many people, let alone Afrikaners, around. In a metal wasteland these post-apocalyptic survivors try to find the roots of their ancestors 200 years before.
The groundbreaking thinking behind this futuristic play won Tertius Kapp and his Tart ‘n Koggel Productions the Beeld Plus Aartvark award for innovative work. If this is the future, the Afrikaners of today have a lot of work to do.
Unfortunately, many of the people that show up at the festival never see the inside of a theatre. They call the Bourbons beer tent home and, for them, the free band is king. The only thing they will pay money for is alcohol and the petrol to get them to Potchefstroom and back, when policemen make a killing trap- ping speedsters doing 80kph in a 60kph zone.
Swartskaap is showing at The Showcase Theatre Restaurant, Banbury Cross Village, Hans Strijdom Drive on October 16 and 17. For more information Tel: (011) 794 4382