Category: author

FEISTY FESTIVALS ARE BACK IN FANTASTIC FORM

~ debeernecessities

With two festivals, Aardklop in Gauteng and Woordfees in Stellenbosch, following one on the other, everyone was keen to see what would happen both on stage and in the auditoriums post Covid. Would they come, was perhaps the most worrying. DIANE DE BEER visited both and was excited by the bounce back of the arts on the festival circuit – with the audiences to support them:

If you look at the winners of this year’s Aardklop productions, it is the veterans who grabbed all the awards.

A very surprised but bursting with pride Elzabé Zietsman reigned supreme with three wins for Femme is Fatale.

I remember when I first saw this in-your-face production at the Vrye Fees last year – it hit hard. In a  country where gender-based violence reaches pandemic-like numbers, you need to grab audiences by the throat. And that’s exactly what this singer/actress does with a magnificent gloves-off script and an attitude that dares anyone not to  take notice.

From her initial on-stage look until she strips down to throw the horror of what is happening to individuals in this country in your face, she doesn’t make a wrong move. It’s attention grabbing for all the right reasons and takes someone as experienced, brave and talented as Ms Zietsman to swing high and low with your emotions.

It’s one of those performances that will stay with you forever and it is her intention, even before winning for Best Musical Performance, Best Music-Driven Production and Best Overall Winner, to find a way to take the show to schools across the country. And in her acceptance speech, she sung the praises of her accompanist Tony Bentel – with reason.

Hopefully, this has empowered her plan of action and promotional campaign. If she can’t encourage change with this one, the world is a really sad place.

Sandra Prinsloo’s performance in Moeder also never flagged. Again, I’ve seen it many times, mostly for her performance and an astonishing script as well as a near-flawless production directed by Christiaan Olwagen.

I’ve said a few times that his place is on stage, it’s where he shines brightest, even though he will probably prove me wrong sooner rather than later.

But he has such a good eye, a filmic vision and the heart to realise that Prinsloo could and should play this woman. It’s one of her best performances ever and I’ve seen many. At the festival I heard people often praising her performance in Masterclass because, of course, Ms Prinsloo hardly ever appears at a festival in just a single production.

I hope she leaves notes for her younger counterparts about concentration, focus and stamina. And again, as so many times in her life, she was rewarded for an astonishing performance in Moeder with the production named the Best Theatre  Production as well as Best Production by an independent group of art lovers, Aardklop Hartsvriende (Friends of the heart).

A scene with Bettie Kemp and Dawid Minnaar in Mirakel.

Another stalwart, David Minnaar, played her flawed partner and, as always, he knew how to pitch just the right tone as the errant husband, but it was in Marthinus Basson’s tour de force Mirakel where he was given a part which especially revealed his comedic qualities.

It is one of Reza de Wet’s lighter works although the message is as hard-hitting and relevant as anything she has written. But Minnaar with Basson as his champion walked a fine line with great relish which added to the performance.

I felt that he was enjoying the play as much as anyone watching it. Because of the travelling theatre company and its dramatics that rule this play, he could charge with dramatic fervour through the hysterics of the flailing players all trying their best to make their lives and livelihood work.

It captures that world which has remained almost unchanged with such dexterity as only a De Wet/Basson partnership can achieve thus allowing a Dawid Minnaar to soar and win as Best Actor and Basson to pick up yet another Best Director award.

An ENTRANCE by the delightful Eben Genis while the company’s leading couple sleep on.

In the same play, Eben Genis (above) also announced his welcome return to the stage to great delight of theatre goers and was warmly received with a Best Supporting Actor award. It is his subtlety, his nuanced excursion into this world, which is a reminder of the fine actor he is.

The Best new Afrikaans text was claimed by Philip Rademeyer who wrote and directed Goed wat wag om te gebeur, the Afrikaans version of The Graveyard starring Gideon Lombard, Antoinette Kellerman and Emma Kotze.

It deals with Hendrik’s return to his childhood home where he struggles with past demons including violence, blame and addiction, all the while trying to suppress his anger and hurt with drink. The only niggle was a text that would have been even better with some clever culling, and this was probably the most common culprit in too many productions.

At a festival where the experienced artists were the ones who often captured the audiences and my praise, I was again overwhelmed by Nataniël’s Ring van Vuur. It is no secret that he is one of my most cherished performers, but there’s reason for that. And again he proved me right with a show that was simply sublime. Not only did he give one of his best performances, he also introduced me to guitarist Loki Rothman whose name was familiar, but no one had ever mentioned his particular flamboyance on a guitar.

Not only does Nataniël give us a quality show, he is also generous with the artists he introduces to a wider audience. That’s the sign of a great and confident artist. I know most music fans will be familiar with Rothman’s prowess on the guitar, but because I am mainly a theatre writer/critic, I have never had the privilege.

Most of these productions made sharp u-turns as they winged their way down to Stellenbosch with the much larger Woordfees, welcoming audiences as Aardklop was waving goodbye.

And again, there was much to praise with a festival bulging with new presentations and productions, enough to have everyone smiling. It’s not about the one or the other. Both have equal right to their audiences, they shouldn’t compete and if I have to make deductions about attendance, both have a strong following for their particular brand. Mostly it probably has to do with where audiences live and how far they’re willing to travel. Convenience, I suspect, will be the determining factor.

As a working journalist, I was blessed to go to both.

And if I have to start with a production that had me thinking, shocked me to my core because of content yet filled me with admiration for the inspirational Jaco Bouwer and cast for tackling such a daring and dangerous text – in the best sense of the word.

Melissa Myburgh (left) with Tinarie van Wyk Loots pictured with Myburgh (right) in the startling Die Vegetariër.

Bouwer, one of our most exciting directors has been working in the television and film world for the last while and has been missed because of his brand of theatre, which always pushes boundaries and challenges audiences to engage with tough issues rather than turning away and tuning out.

From the moment you enter and witness the amazing set of Die Vegetariër, your mind starts racing. There’s something pristine and perfect about the space and yet it’s a slaughterhouse, which is an ominous sign even before the action starts.

Die Vegetariër pictured by Nardus Engelbrecht

But in typical Bouwer fashion, he hits you in the solar plexus from start to finish and while you might be reeling throughout trying to contain your emotions racing ahead, it’s the unflinching text and cast that stay with you as you keep unravelling the lives of the people who share their stories.

And you keep coming back to the slab of meat you keep staring at as you enter and the meat hook that just hangs there menacingly until it captures the crux of what you are witnessing. It’s hardcore, but in the world we live in with gender-based violence such a scourge (as already mentioned), we have almost become immune not only as individuals but as a society.

The cast – Stian Bam, Wilhelm van der Walt, Tinarie van Wyk Loots and Melissa Myburgh – are staggering in this brutally honest portrayal of life for far too many as physical and psychological abuse becomes the common language in relationships. And the young Myburgh deserves a special mention because her character’s youth embodies vulnerability and defencelessness in all its harshness and is the most exposed.

It’s not easy to watch, but because of the approach of everyone involved, from Willem Anker’s adaptation of Han Kang’s The Vegetarian to Bouwer’s brilliant conception and the way he seamlessly pulls it all together from the enveloping visuals to the overwhelming performances, it’s simply a privilege – and one that stays and niggles at you forever.

Hold Still with the astounding acting couple Mwenya Kabwe and Andrew Buckland.

On a different spectrum but as challenging, Jay Pather’s Hold Still with an extraordinary text by Nadia Davids tackles refugees, one of the toughest issues in today’s unravelling world as we roll from one crisis to the next. And if you look closer, refugees are at the centre of most of them. Think Gaza.

But what she does is take a model modern couple and make them face today’s harsh reality. There’s a reason refugees cause such heartache and often horror. There aren’t solutions or none that is workable, so many simply turn their backs.

It’s gritty yet glorious theatre as two veteran actors (Andrew Buckland and Mwenya Kabwe) star as a delightful couple who lovingly banter away until the very essence of their family relationships is blown apart. Both these actors take your breath away with performances that are in your face and completely in the moment. They’re complemented by the two youngsters in the cast, Lyle October as their son and Tailyn Ramsamy as his friend in search of refugee status, hence the dilemma.

As the mother so aptly confesses:  they sold their son a story about their moral selves which they themselves had come to believe. It’s real world issues, tough to work through and easier to ignore, yet this is the perfect platform to grapple with our reality today.

An exuberant Caleb Swanepoel in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Picture: Llewellyn de Wet.

And the third piece that blew me away was Geoffrey Hyland’s Maynardville Shakespeare production, which I am thrilled to announce is coming to Pieter Toerien’s Montecasino in November. If you see nothing else this year, don’t miss this production.

It is simply glorious and will have you screaming with laughter from beginning to end. I cannot imagine a better introduction to Shakespeare than this play that symbolises everything that this fantastic playwright is about. It’s entertainment writ LARGE and simply the perfect end-of-year production with an astounding cast put together magnificently.

My only qualm is that it was first staged at Maynardville, Cape Town’s glorious outdoor theatre venue, and I saw it at the Libertas amphitheatre in Stellenbosch, but with Hyland’s astonishing artistry, I’m sure you won’t even notice. Never before would I have thought that I would be so happy to see a Shakespeare at a festival. That it was included in the programme, was simply a stroke of genius.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a spectacle in colour and charm.
Picture: Mark Wessels.

Just go – and tell everyone around you not to miss this fantastic show. You won’t regret it and start this festive season in the best possible way. (See full review once it has opened with a run from 8 to 19 November.)         

  • I have singled out only a handful of productions which I saw at the festivals. There are many more to praise, but I grabbed those few that grabbed both my head and heart and wouldn’t let go …                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

THE PROMISE DELIVERS CHALLENGING THEATRE WITH DIRECTOR SYLVAINE STRIKE AT THE HELM

~ debeernecessities

DIANE DE BEER

Pictures: Claude Barnardo

The Promise cast on stage.

THE PROMISE

ADAPTATION:

Author Damon Galgut with Sylvaine Strike and suggestions by the cast

DIRECTOR

Sylvaine Strike

CAST

Chuma Sopotela, Rob van Vuuren, Kate Normington, Frank Opperman, Jane de Wet, Jenny Stead, Albert Pretorius, Sanda Shandu, Cintaine Schutte

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR AND ARCHIVIST

Kirsten Harris

SET AND LIGHTING DESIGN

Joshua Lindberg

MUSIC DIRECTOR, SOUND DESIGN AND ORIGINAL SCORE

Charl-Johan Lingenfelder

CHOREOGRAPHY AND INTIMACY CO-ORDINATOR

Natalie Fisher

COSTUME DESIGN

Penny Simpson

VENUE

The Market Theatre

DATES

Until November 5

Jane de Wet, Rob van Vuuren and Jenny Stead.

One has to admire artist Sylvaine Strike’s process when she decides on a project. It’s all systems go and in Strike’s world, the focus is unfailing.

She spent 18 months hard at work on this extraordinary piece of theatre, which has finally reached The Market Theatre.

But there are a few things to take on board before you arrive. It’s based on a book, Damon Galgut’s The Promise, and that means that it is her interpretation of Galgut’s writing and script, even if he was closely involved throughout.

Also, it is two hours 40 minutes long and for many less-experienced theatre goers, that might be quite

 an ask. One has to be theatre fit.

Albert Pretorius and Sanda Shandu as two policemen

But for me there’s no question that it has to be seen, and a very packed and excited audience obviously in anticipation was ready and waiting on opening day. Even when we arrived to collect tickets there was an audible buzz and it was lovely to experience a theatre event of this kind. The last one was the August Wilson production at the Joburg Theatre last year.

Five minutes into the production, I already had a smile. For this one, Strike created her own theatre language in which to tell her story and for me, it couldn’t have been further from the language and storytelling of the book, yet both had a very individual and personal flavour which I loved.

I almost felt as though I had walked into a kind of grotesque fairy tale for adults and, while the approach might have felt comical to some, it was anything but because of the content and the story it was telling.

Frank Opperman.

It was also clear that as individuals, those watching the play would have to buy into the concept – and for me that wasn’t a tough ask. It’s why we watch theatre, to catch those productions where those participating take risks to give audiences a storytelling experience that’s novel and best suited to a particular text.

The Strike brand has always been about her individual style and, while she pays close attention to the text, her language is much more than just something we listen to. She uses the stage and everything visual as part of the ensemble and then she adds very specific movements and rhythms as well – as in this instance, a soundscape by genial music man Charl-Johan Lingenfelder with a kind of music/sound box on the side of the extraordinary stage designed insightfully by Joshua Lindberg, who was also responsible for fantastic lighting (so delighted that the family name lives on in our theatre landscape).

And that in itself sets the tone for this topsy-turvy world the Swart family inhabit. The matriarch of the family, seemingly the one that held them steady with a strong hand and a moral compass, has died. Thus we find all of them in turmoil as they come together for the family funeral (one of four that determine four periods in a country gone mad).

But there’s one obstacle  –  Amor (Jane de Wet), the youngest sibling, had heard Ma (Kate Normington) extract a promise from Pa (Frank Opperman) that he would give Salome (Chuma Sopotela) her house on the furthest corner of the farm, mainly because she was the one who diligently and lovingly looked after the mother in her illness.

A familiar scene in many white South African households and the rest of the family simply disengage while Amor keeps at it relentlessly – determinedly – as their conscience. The ensemble of nine work well together as a group and individually, although I suspect, audiences will have different favourites.

Cintaine Schutte and Albert Pretorius .

Amongst the men, my favourite performer was Albert Pretorius who even though his many different characters often had a comical edge, he manages such a fine artistic line and knows just how to hold it back. Frank Opperman also captured his different characters masterfully. Rob van Vuuren is at the heart of the piece as Anton Swart.

Chuma Sopotela is the key of the piece as both Salome and the storyteller, and in both roles her strong presence holds The Promise, both in the production and at the centre of the story. She was the perfect fit.

Each one of the performers added to the whole. Because many roles were played by each actor, some characters worked better than others, and who you like or discard will be a personal preference. I don’t think with the adopted style there’s a right or wrong, it’s a preference thing.

So how did it all come together. It’s a HUGE production. I suspect, especially while writing this review, that one needs more than one or two viewings to truly appreciate the breadth of the drama and staging. I can simply stand back in awe.

What for me personally would have worked better, would have been to lose most of the second half (obviously not the end). Up to the interval, everything worked perfectly, but then it started to unravel. A trim of an hour would have been my ask and would have served the actors and the story better.

It was as if sustaining the production for swo long was too big an ask and detracted rather than added to the final product.

Should people go? What a question! It’s a theatrical experience. There’s a cast that does exquisite work, moments that will take your breath away, a set, costumes and lighting that all contribute to the bigger picture and, finally, a director who puts herself out there, pushes as far as she dares, breaks boundaries and develops ways of telling stories that keep you riveted.

You might not love every minute, but you have to admire the artistry, the vision and the theatricality with scope that’s daunting yet inevitable when Strike decides to do it. And we’re the beneficiaries.

SYLVAINE STRIKE’S INSIGHTFUL PLAY WITH DAMON GALGUT’S BOOKER PRIZE WINNER THE PROMISE

~ debeernecessities

Time was the rare gift that celebrated director Sylvaine Strike was given with her latest production, The Promise, written and adapted (from his novel) by author Damon Galgut. She tells DIANE DE BEER more about the extraordinary process which started more than 18 months ago and is on at The Market (until November 5) following its recent Cape Town run:

“In a way, The Promise selected me,” she explains, because Damon approached her to adapt it for the stage, thinking that she would probably be the right fit because he had foreseen that it would have to be done very theatrically and very physically if it were to have a theatrical life at all.

She was utterly smitten by the idea, but insisted that Damon adapt it alongside her because she was reluctant to tinker with his text. “I needed him to travel the road and structure it in a way that he would feel could live as theatrical version.” She had read the novel twice even before he contacted her and was delighted.

The Promise with the full cast as well as author, Damon Galgut (left) and Sylvaine Strike (right).

When it came to casting, it began with finding the right person to set the bar from a physical perspective and she knew from the outset when reading The Promise and imagining who her Anton could be, that it was Rob van Vuuren.

Gifted this opportunity of a role that is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, Rob was thrilled just to delve into this exquisite character and the very many facets of it. Sylvaine knew he would be the one who she would work off in finding the rest of the family, which includes Frank Opperman as Anton’s father, an Afrikaans patriarch, Kate Normington as his mother, jenny Stead as Astrid, his middle sister, and the young Jane de Wet as Amor

“The pivotal and most important character of Salome is played by Chuma Sepotela, who holds this exquisite part in two dimensions in the sense that she’s also the narrator of the piece, as Chuma herself, who plays the story conjuror.”

Sandu Shando plays Lukas, Salome’s son, and “the amazing Albert Pretorius and Cintaine Schutte, both adding deep dimension, comedy and pathos in the roles of Tannie Marina and Okkie as well as the many characters they portray,” she concludes.

In total it’s a cast of 9 and, before anything else, they did a workshop with Sylvaine to discover the physical language as the blueprint to the play.

In rehearsals: the cast and director Sylvaine Strike.

With both the director and writer growing up in Pretoria, their coming together was almost written in the stars. “I think growing up in Pretoria and being aware of the glaring chasm between the haves and the have nots, the ability for Pretoria to ride that knife edge between ignoring the political reality, the lies that have been woven to its children, the incredible duality between darkness and light, tragedy and comedy that this book engages with and its calling out for us to face the shame for how we lived,” all of that made the book irresistible.

“There’s no escape but to look it in the eye, which is what this was and showing what it felt like for me. The novel forced me to do it as it named everything I was feeling growing up there as a child and being a teenager there and sensing that something was so terribly wrong with it.

The full cast on stage. Photographer: Claude Barnardo.

“Four decades of Pretoria so distinctly captured, I rose to the challenge of telling the story on stage because I wanted to reach people with it and make them feel what it felt like for me to read it and everything it made me feel to confront our whiteness in its brutal hideousness and its complexity and own it.”

Once the decision was made, she and Damon sat for two solid weeks unpacking the novel. At first he really battled with seeing how it could be put on stage. Sylvaine thinks that in his mind the locations were so specific that it took some time for them to understand the kind of language it would need in order to tell the story.

“We both agreed that the very fluid narrative that Damon captures and writes in, a narrative that changes perspective all the time, changes its mind all the time, needed to come from a chorus almost in the Greek tragedy sense, to comment on the action, to speak to the hero or the anti-hero, to contain their thoughts, and to move swiftly through the action alongside it.”

Scenes on stage. (Pictures: Claude Barnardo)

Neither the reader nor the writer could hold on to all their darlings. They knew they had to lose certain bits of the novel, cutting and culling, choosing only the very essential parts of the story, and look at compressing it into a time frame that would suit theatre, so much more condensed than in a book.

 They also needed to find a theatrical language and a physical language that was able to edit between time and place very swiftly, where actors could age from one decade to the next simply by using their bodies. Damon then proceeded to write five drafts which incorporated this language and refined it more and more and more.

In between the first and second draft they had a workshop which Damon attended in which she worked with her cast and at which Charl-Johan Lingenfelder (music/soundscape) and Joshua Lindberg (set and lighting design ) as well as Penny Simpson (costumes) were present. “It was a collaborate effort to reach a place  where script was done and created,” she explains.

Wearing her heart on her sleeve, director Sylvaine Strike.

Photographer: Martin Kluge

In conclusion, after all the hard work, the introspection, a fantastic cast, long hours and hard work, she hopes audiences take a good hard look  at our country  –  and a soft look as well. “And by that I mean allowing us to enter its deep humanity and inhumanity, looking into a mirror, admitting our own whiteness, hearing it, not making excuses for it,  not trying to explain it, but most of all really looking at the relationship we have as South Africans with each other.

“There’s also the microcosm of a family and its domestic worker Salome, which is a microcosm for  the dynamics within our country, the difficulties, the obstacles, the promises made and broken, the lack of care we have for one another, the care in some aspects, about our country looking at itself, not being spoken down to, but simply observing itself, taking a step back to see more clearly, not back in time, just to get more focus on where we’re at.

“And what I love about The Promise is that it doesn’t offer any solutions, just gives us a glimpse of what we have done and what we have become over the last four decades of our country’s democracy.”

A CELEBRATORY MOMENTUM BELEGGINGS AARDKLOP RETURNS WITH A SPARKLING SMORGASBORD OF EXCELLENT THEATRE

~ debeernecessities

It’s the time of festivals with Aardklop opening with a celebration of jacaranda showers and shows from October 3 until 8. DIANE DE BEER points to a few of her favourites:

When I look at festivals, what they have to offer, I always go to theatre first. It’s my passion, people who tell stories.  Fortunately, I know that stories are an integral part of the arts and are told in different ways. That’s what makes a festival such a delight.

Die Moeder with Sandra Prinsloo and Dawid Minnaar. Picture: Emma Wiehman.

But let’s start with theatre. If you haven’t seen Sandra Prinsloo’s Die Moeder yet or even if you have, see it again. It’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime performances even if she has had many of those. It’s a story of a woman ageing who has lost her heart and her soul as she feels discarded and left out of the dance of life.

That might sound horrific, but the text and the ensemble cast, including the magnificent Dawid Minnaar, Ludwig Binge and Ashley de Lange with exciting directing by Christiaan Olwagen, present huge rewards.

Bettie Kemp and Dawid Minnaar in Mirakel.

On a lighter note, Marthinus Basson, a Reza de Wet genius, presents probably her funniest play, titled Mirakel. With another fantastic cast, including Rolanda Marais, Carla Smith, Dawid Minnaar, Edwin van der Walt, Bettie Kemp and Ebin Genis, it takes us back in time when theatre was presented by traveling companies, which went from town to town, region to region.

That already puts a smile on my face, and when you get this almost ragtag band of actors together, trying to save their lives by enhancing their livelihood with all the drama of the time and the company, it’s a scream. Just seeing Minnaar, who we are used to seeing on stage in serious mode, is a delight as he lights up the room with his angst and artistic temperament.

Braam en die Engel with Joannie Combrink, de Klerk Oelofse, Rehane Abrahams and Shaun Oelf, directed by Nico Scheepers, has all the elements for something quite enchanting. Add to that Kanya Viljoen who adapted the text from a YA book with the eponymous title, Grant van Ster as choreographer, Franco Prinsloo as composer and Scheepers and Nell van der Merwe on props and puppets as well as set, costume and lighting design, it’s a no-brainer.

Described as a magic realism experience for the whole family, this sounds worth driving for and not to be missed. I don’t even know the book although the title does the trick, but the artists involved get my backing all the way.

Geon Nel in Hoerkind. Picture: Gys Loubser.

Also based on a book, Hoerkind, written by Herman Lategan and adapted by Francois Toerien, tells the writer’s own story about a life in tatters when as a six-year-old he is sent to an orphanage. His stepfather shoots at him, at 13 he is stalked by a paedophile, and he turns to drink and drugs to stay sane, this solo production is directed by Margit Meyer-Rödenbeck, with Geon Nel in the title role.

The young boy’s missteps are many as he tries to survive. It’s a hair-raising story of loss and triumph in a world that is feels as if it is against him as he valiantly fights to survive.

Goed wat wag om te gebeur. Picture: Nardus Engelbrecht

Another debut production, Goed Wat Wag Om te Gebeur, has impeccable credentials with a cast featuring Antoinette Kellerman, Gideon Lombard and Emma Kotze with Philip Rademeyer as playwright and director (reworked in Afrikaans from The Graveyard).

Hendrik returns home after 15 years but, because the house is deserted, he decides to wait in the cellar where he spent his childhood years. It is empty, but the family’s secrets and history thicken the air and form part of the foundation of the house. Three figures keep appearing – his hardened sister, his petite mother and his lively girlfriend … and secrets and lies come to the surface.

Droomwerk. Picture: Lise Kuhn.

Droomwerk spotlights Jill Levenberg, Ben Albertyn, Johann Nel, Tyrish Mili and Johann Vermaak, directed by Kanya Viljoen and Lwanda Sindaphi. It unfolds as a dream as the title suggests. Petrus is the one who dreams about his family’s complex past: his ancestral mother, Diana of Madagascar, is looking for her daughter; and his grandfather, an apartheid senator, is dying.

The play deals with conflict, alienation and disillusionment. Will Petrus find the answers that bring him peace? Written by Pieter Odendaal, the text has already garnered an award for the best drama by the ATKV Woordveertjies.

Cindy Swanepoel and Zak Henrdrikz star in Henrietta Gryffenberg’s text 1 (Een) – described as a tragicomedy about love. Directed by Alby Michaels with choreography by Craig Morris and original music by Coenraad Rall (Amanda Strydom’s accompanist), it’s all about once upon a time … there were two people so fond of one another that they grew,the one into the other.

With too much togetherness, the two eventually decide it’s time to separate … but which one will survive this miraculous ordeal?

This tongue-in-cheek production looks with a slight jaundiced eye at the ancient themes of love and transience while placing it in an absurd context. Are human beings likely to find their perfect partner or are the chances just endlessly slim?

It’s a challenging piece, which should translate perfectly on stage with hopefully much laughter at the fallibility of man.

Two strong solo productions include Marion Holm, a seasoned actress who works wonderfully with words and life as she experiences it. She has her own style, a way of sharing her stories that are hysterical and sometimes quite harrowing but everything is done with such hilarity, it’s laughter from beginning to end.

On a dramatic note, Je-ani Swiegers stars in Die Vrou Op Die Dak, which tells the story of a woman who flees to the roof of her house where she hopes to find the answers to a life that has suddenly become impossible. Everything she thought she knew is disintegrating and she hopes this fresh perspective might bring fresh insights.

And don’t miss out on the latest offerings from the grand dames of cabaret, Elzabé Zietsman(with Tony Bentel in the perfectly pitched Femme is Fatale) and Amanda Strydom (Amber/Ombré). Their staying power is unique as they keep refining their artistry.

It’s a lucky packet of plays with a selection of everything one could possibly wish for when going to a festival.

And then there’s more and many different entertainment options waiting to be discovered at https://aardklop.co.za/program-2023/

Also to follow, is Nataniël’s Aardklop production as well as the rest of his surprise packages.

THE MESMERISING WONDROUS LIFE OF PI

~ debeernecessities

Review by DIANE DE BEER:

It all happens on stage with all the bells and whistles . Credit: Johan Persson

LIFE OF PI BY YAN MARTEL ADAPTED BY LOLITA CHAKRABARTI

Director: Max Webster

Cast: Hiran Abeysekera and the magnificent puppets

Set and Costume Designer: Tom Hatley

Puppet and Movement Director: Finn Caldwell

Puppetry Designers: Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell

Lighting Designer: Tim Lutkin

Sound Design: Carolyn Downing

Composer: Andrew T Mackay

Scheduled screenings on 27 August at 2.30, and on 30 and 31 August at 5.30, but check your area for loadshedding, when screening times might change.

Halfway through the filmed version of this spectacular West End play, the director, designer and writer (who adapted the book) have a short chat about the play and how it all began. For the writer it was about the story, finding all the important bits and pulling them together for the stage version. For the director, it was about what could work on stage and how to do it. And for the designer it all began with the Richard Parker, the tiger.

Life of Pi imagined in spectacular style. Credit: Johan Persson

Anyone who has read the book and now sees the filmed play will know that this is where the struggle on every level is centred and, once they got that right, it was all systems go. And that’s no small thing. I counted seven puppeteers just for the tiger. It’s simply spectacular – the design, the puppets, the lighting, the video and the sound. That’s why I listed all the names in the credits. It’s a production with all the bells and whistles and yet it holds the heart of the story with the performances by Abeysekera and the animals that come to life.

Seven puppeteers are listed in the credits just for the tiger. Credit: Johan Persson

It’s clear that imagination was the key requirement for this fantastic book, which tells the story of a 16-year-old boy named Pi who is stranded on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean with four other survivors – a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and a Royal Bengal tiger.

We know he has made it because he is telling the story to two scientific types, the one sympathetic, the other a sceptic.

Hiran Abeysekera as Pi with one of his companions, a zebra. Credit: Johan Persson

But the wizardry of the play is all achieved by the magical approach and manner of telling and showing the marvellous Mantel story with no missteps. And although just the set is enough as it moves and rises and changes form to overwhelm the story, everything holds together in the way it should with Pi and his animal friends taking centre stage.

The experience is mesmerising and the two and a half hours flies by as Pi cajoles and cunningly sweet talks and outsmarts his sometimes ferocious and reluctant companions. It’s a kind of Alice-in- Wonderland adventure yet perhaps with a touch more reality than wonder, even if that is always present.

The determination of Pi to achieve his destiny draws you into both his pain and pleasure and this journey, keeping in mind that is after all a stage play, is all about the overwhelming power of theatre when done this magnificently.

Pi in conversation with Richard Parker, the tiger. Credit: Johan Persson

I have to admit, I think Pi and his friend Richard Parker and their struggle for survival have everything to do with it!

The NT Live experience is an expensive exercise but you are seeing some of the best theatre experiences the world has to offer. If that’s your gig, don’t think twice.

Bookings at Ster Kinekor: Rosebank Nouveau in Johannesburg, Ster-Kinekor Brooklyn in Pretoria, Ster-Kinekor V&A Waterfront in Cape Town and Ster-Kinekor Gateway in Umhlanga.

MIKE VAN GRAAN’S PIERCING GAZE PERFECTLY CHANNELED BY KIM BLANCHE ADONIS AT THEATRE ON THE SQUARE

~ debeernecessities

DIANE DE BEER reviews:

MY FELLOW SOUTH AFRICANS

WRITTEN BY Mike van Graan

PERFORMED BY Kim Blanche Adonis

CHANNELING DIRECTION BY Rob van Vuuren and Daniel Mpilo Richards

PLAYING AT Theatre on the Square Sandton

UNTIL September 2 (Tuesday to Friday at 7.30pm and Saturdays at 5 and 8pm)

Booking at Computicket

Kim Blanche Adonis has style, sass, sparkle and a suitcase stuffed with characters and wise Van Graan words.

Playwright Mike van Graan has the gift of casting his net, finding the right focus and then going in for the kill in the most devastating fashion.

But all of this is done with such skill and finesse that, even in those uncomfortable moments when you might be the target, you nod in agreement.

Yes, it is incredibly funny until it isn’t. And, sadly, in this country, it often isn’t. This time he has found a devastating target  –  the upcoming elections. With the unravelling of the country so visible in the Eskom fiasco which just keeps going, never letting up, his audience (and it was packed to the rafters on opening night) are rooting all the way. We have all suffered enough and there’s often a collective sigh.

Thirty years into our post-apartheid democracy, he tells us, our country is in desperate need of change, a reset, a re-imagining of the dream we had some three decades ago. And then he reveals the real purpose of the play: everyone agrees that the elections in 2024 offer an opportunity for the beginning of new beginnings, hence My Fellow South Africans, which he describes as his modest contribution to the discourse that may shape the elections, reflecting us back to ourselves, reminding us of our optimism, and finally urging us ‘to do something’.

And while he is humble in his aspirations, Van Graan has been doing this for most of his playwriting life, showing us who we are and just how much we are willing to take. Through the years, he has fine-tuned what he says and how to say it, and in this instance also gathered the perfect coterie of stage chums with whom he has collaborated on three one-person revues: Rob van Vuuren (director) and Daniel Mpilo Richards (performer but in this instance director) who also brought the star of this show, Kim Blanche Adonis, on board.

Taking over from Richards is no small ask and for the shortest time while acclimatising to her particular style, I wasn’t sure she was going to crack it – until she did with sheer determination, style, skill and an exuberant performance that never let up.

The text is dense, the demands on the actor intense, but she has taken this on with a will and willingness to make it her own. There’s nothing she’s not going to do to make a character work and her deftness with accents, complete comfort on stage and constant chameleon-like changes are astonishing. Van Graan has found a warrior for his sharpest words.

And as the audience, you have to tune in too. It’s fast and furious, and the writer doesn’t tread lightly as he flies fiercely through the South African landscape, demolishing everything he witnesses in a land that’s punch drunk as it faces one disaster after the other.

Just before the show, I was listening to a news report on the BRICS summit which revealed that the Chinese had gifted us R500 million, but it went on to report, R170 million had already disappeared! I can just imagine what Van Graan would do with that.

He wishes us a cathartic experience and it is that, but what I love the most is the way he lets rip with words and worries, always funny but never at the expense of the catastrophe of what has happened to this country we had such hopes for. He is piercingly honest. It’s not always possible to laugh and at some moments the spotlight on those of us who are born with privilege just because of the colour of a skin is vicious, as it should be.

Yes, he is there to entertain, and with the smarts of Adonis, it is just that, but he never turns away, softens the blow or shies away from making a point whatever the target might be. This is about our country, making the right choices and going into action rather than simply complaining.

Van Graan carries the moniker cultural activist because that is exactly what he does with all the skill of both his perceptive and piercing gaze and his writing wizardry.

It’s a blast!

AUTHOR/ACTRESS WILLEMIEN DU PREEZ TURNS A DEVASTATING FOLLY, A DREAM DASHED, INTO YET ANOTHER CREATIVE ENDEAVOUR

~ debeernecessities

Most of us have dreams that we hope will become reality one day, but sometimes life happens and we don’t get round to it. Willemien du Preez and her husband, whom she refers to as Liefie, decided on what many might suggest was the spur of a moment, to buy what they believed would be their dream farm. DIANE DE BEER speaks to the author about her book Plaas se Prys (Price of a Farm) (Protea Boekhuis):

He left a perfectly good job with all the richly earned rewards still waiting in the future and she waved goodbye to city life and everything familiar to her.

The Du Preez couple had been to visit the area far fom their current home in Gauteng, much closer to Cape Town, had lost their hearts almost at first sight and here they were, taking the first steps into what they hoped would be their dream life.

Willemien’s book is about this period in her life (if you don’t read Afrikaans, hold thumbs for a translation) in which she captures the adventures of two city slickers hoping to transform overnight into their version of Karen Blixen’s “I had a farm in Africa…”.

It all began when Willemien was battling the loss of an almost three-year-long project that had demanded blood, sweat and tears, but just didn’t work out. She longed for something peaceful, something beautiful and a respite – and to add to her dilemma, her husband was also battle-weary and simply dead tired.

With hindsight, this self-made adventure felt fantastical from the start. She describes it as two desperate individuals fleeing from their reality. “The mountains and a different lifestyle were appealing.”

A the time they didn’t regard this madcap move as such. Their children were adults, they had some money in the bank and Gauteng’s crime statistics were unnerving. “My husband always wanted to farm like his grandfather before him, and I wanted to live like my grandfather and grandmother, off the land.”

“We were still young enough to start over,” she explains, “probably a misguided romance with nature.”

The day they bought the farm was perfect. As Willemien describes it, they were overwhelmed by the spectacle of what they hoped to purchase – and then inhabit. “The fields, the mountains, the sky, the light, everything seemed to conspire.”

For the Du Preez’s, it felt like a gift. A rose-tinted picture emerged, the income it seemed would be more than they hoped for and it felt as though the farm had been made specifically to fulfil  their dreams

When your eyes rest on the cobbling stream, it fails to see the damage the flood waters could do during a terrifying rain storm. What they saw was a farming project for her husband and a restoration project for her. “I would restore the 100-year old  farmhouse with two attics into a holiday home for our children and the grand-children still to come. We were thinking of the future – yet not so much!”

Again, looking back, she knows that even when packing their belongings for the grand move, there was trepidation. “The alarm bells came from inside me after that first visit to the farm. It didn’t feel so right anymore.”

On their way back following their first visit, they argued, but not about their momentous purchase. “That was too late. We had already signed the papers,” she says. But reality set in almost immediately after their arrival on the farm. “I realised it wasn’t mist blowing over the farm, it was dust,” only now realising that it dominated her huge struggle to cling to the dream.

No wisdom was passed on when they bought the farm and probably they would not have listened. Once they had decided to throw in the towel, a neighbour described as a wise boervrou (farmer’s wife), said that if she were buying a farm, she would have visited often, even if the seller grew tired of the intrusion. She would have considered every vantage point before she made an offer. “Now I would tell my younger self, you have to talk to all the farmers in the region. You have to ask about the pitfalls, know the weather patterns and discover everything there is to know which will not be included in the sales pitch,”says Willemien.

She has gained insight, of course, and now she knows that you cannot lightly tackle something this extraordinary. “You can’t just decide one day to go farming. You must know the lay of the land and preferably come from there.”

Fortunately the Du Preezs are not people who simply take life lying down. After quitting the farm, they spent a few years rebuilding their life in Cape Town and environment. André returned to law and Willemien taught Afrikaans to English speakers, picked up her acting career and earned enough money in international ads to take them on an overseas trip.

Following a decade in the Cape, they returned to Gauteng to be closer to their children and grandchildren and she started writing this book after encouragement from another author, Johann Symmington.

There were dark times as the pandemic was both a threat yet provided the time to write. For Willemien, writing about something that still has an impact on their lives was therapeutic. I suspect the rewards from grateful readers will also help to heal some wounds. It’s a story told with searing honesty and a humanity that’s heart-warming.

It’s the kind of thing that many will identify with, told in a manner that is as frank as anyone can be when focussing on their biggest folly. But don’t we all mistakes and tumble down that slippery slope and if you can rise from that heroically, take a bow.

When I met her following a talk at the Vrye Weekblad Book Festival in Cullinan, I knew that this was a book I wanted to read. When a dream shatters, not everyone manages to put the pieces together again.

But Willemien and André have done exactly that. “I know that we have accepted  the past and each other.”

And most precious of all, that’s what they have left: each other.

ARRESTING PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE WITH ACTOR MPUME MTHOMBENI AND DIRECTOR NEIL COPPEN THE PERFECT TEAM

~ debeernecessities

DIANE DE BEER reviews:

Mpume Mthombeni as Zenzile Maseko

PICTURES: Val Adamson

Isidlamlilo/The Fire Eater

Presented by The Market Theatre in association with Empatheatre and the National Arts Festival

Workshopped by actor Mpume Mthombeni and director Neil Coppen from an oral history project on migration

Dates: Sunday 30 July at 3pm, 2, 3, 4 August at 7pm and 5 and 6 August at 3 and 7pm

Our first encounter with Zenzile Maseko (Mthombeni) is in her women’s hostel room. She is a grandmother, partially disabled, who has just discovered that Home Affairs declared her dead two years ago. That’s why she hasn’t been receiving her grant, which would enable her to build her dream house in her childhood village, iPharadise.

What might have seemed to those of us looking at a woman, ageing, alone in a room with probably all her worldly possessions, as a small life is given towering proportions as this magnificent Shakespearean monologue starts spilling forth. All of this takes place in the midst of a nightmarish storm, which recalls the recent KwaZulu-Natal floods as well as the stormy life of Zenzile, who is being purged through this devastating, often delirious unfolding of a life of one of millions of similar women in similar circumstances in this country.

Few of us would even handle one of these events that seem to consume her whole being as the disasters roll in and out with regular intervals. Just the word Home Affairs is enough to draw sighs of despair as we think of the rows and rows of people seen in a distance on a monthly basis as they wait to collect their grants, which is often the only lifeline for an extended family.

But Zenzile has courage to fall back on and draw from as her life could not have been more dramatic.

And that’s just the broad strokes.

Yet, more than this epic life story that seems to span many lives, generations and cycles of violence that feel never-ending, is the performance by the magnificent Mthombeni. She transforms Zenzile in a matter of minutes as she draws on all her skills to explore this heart wrenching embodiment of a woman whose life depended on her being a warrior.

And that she is as she rises through each crisis that becomes her life. She simply has to survive. Nothing has been brought on by her own actions or even who she is. It is simply the way people are discarded and ignored as they battle their every daily task.

Few of us have any idea how most of our people live. We think loadshedding is our biggest struggle. For many electricity is but a dream.

Zenzile brings all of that to the light as she creates her own Lear, battling her fraught life as well as the elements. It is an awe-inspiring performance which takes you on an emotional endurance race that’s hugely exciting to witness but also daunting to compute.

Brilliant lighting design by Tina le Roux

Her performance is enhanced by the text and the way she grabs hold of it, workshopped by Coppen and Mthombeni, who never lets up, as well as the staging which is achieved with spectacular lighting that brings a magnificent intensity.

In the publicity it is said that some have referred to this as a modern day South African classic, I can see why. It’s startling yet stunning theatre which explores invisible South African lives and gives one such woman a platform.

AUTHOR MICK HERRON’S SLOW HORSES OF SLOUGH HOUSE ARE AS DELICIOUS ON SCREEN AS ON PAPER

~ debeernecessities

If you haven’t heard of the author Mick Herron and the imaginary men and women who are all part of Slow Horses, it’s time to find those books and to stream the first two seasons of Slow Horses which can be seen on Apple TV now. DIANE DE BEER reveals more:

If you have Apple TV, this is one to see.

Those of you who loved the intrigue of John le Carré’s spy novels, lost your heart to his characters with George Smiley leading the pack and still remember Alec Guinness’s portrayal of the seemingly distracted, downtrodden spymaster, will be pleased to know there’s another spy series available to both read and catch on a streaming service.

With a gaping hole left behind by the Le Carré absence,  just in time, in steps author Mick Herron. I was told by a friend about the new arrival a few years back, and my husband and I jumped in immediately to tackle the series.

That was a while before the television series was even on the cards.

We were immediately hooked, but for me it was slow going because I had to catch up first with some other freshly published works waiting for review. I was even sent one of the books in the Slow Horses series along the way and quite recently I decided it was time to spoil myself and tackle the last four in the series. And I did so with glee.

Herron is a fantastic writer. His language often has your toes curling, and his characters and their ticks, especially the motley crew who make up the Slow Horses and quickly rule the roost.

Herron’s first thriller, aptly titled Slow Horses, was immediately shortlisted for the CWA Ian Flemming Steel Dagger as well as named one of the 20 best spy novels of all time by the London Daily Telegraph. The second, Dead Lions, won the CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger, and so the list reads on and on with the awards and praise growing with each new novel in the series.

Once you’ve met the reluctant leader of the pack, Jackson Lamb, you won’t stop smiling at all his antics. He must be one of the most reviled bosses ever created and yet, while he is constantly deriding and humiliating his underlings, he is also first on the scene at any sign of trouble and the one to think up some terrible revenge when even a hair on the head of one of his spooks is pulled out of place.

Slough House, the name of the unappealing offices (if you could reasonably call it that), is where spies from MI5 are sent when they’ve messed up. No one cares what happens to them, borne out by the fact that their boss seems no more than a slouch who has been put on this earth to torture those who are unfortunate enough to serve under him.

While all this might be painting completely the wrong picture, it is difficult not to shout from the rooftops about this exhilarating spy writer who seems to have silently (and sometimes unobserved) risen to the top of the all-time best spy series list. It would be tough to find a reader who disagrees.

What more can one ask for than a spy novel written in a way that’s character-driven yet has a story unfolding which not only keeps you up at night, but also boasts a plot that will keep you engaged as you puzzle your way through the world of espionage?

In the end, if I had to pinpoint the most appealing aspect of a Jackson Lamb novel, it would be the language. To prove my point, a small extract which offers some kind of description of Slough House: “Heat rises, as is commonly known, but not always without effort. In Slough House, its ascent is marked by a series of bangs and gurgles, an audible diary of a forced and painful passage through cranky piping, and if you could magic the plumbing out of the structure and view it as a free-standing exoskeleton, it would be all leaks and dribbles: an arthritic dinosaur, its joints angled awkwardly where fractures have messily healed; its limbs a mismatched muddle; its extremities producing explosions of heat in unlikely places; its irregular palpitations a result of pockets of air straining for escape.”

And then about the ethos: “Slough House was a branch of the Service, certainly, but ‘arm’ was pitching it strong. As was ‘finger’, come to that; fingers could be on the button or on the pulse. Fingernails, now those you clipped, discarded, and never wanted to see again. So Slough House was a fingernail of the Service: a fair step from Regent’s Park geographically, and on another planet in most other ways. Slough House was where you ended up when all the bright avenues were closed to you. It was where they sent you when they wanted you to go away, but didn’t want to sack you in case you got litigious about it.”

And then finaly, just something about the feared leader Jackson Lamb: “Breakfast was two pints of water and four Nurofen. Shaving was out of the question, but he released himself from yesterday’s tie with the kitchen scissors and found a fresh suit, which meant one that had been in his actual wardrobe, if not on a hanger”… and it goes on.

I am now waiting patiently for book no ten in the series. In the meantime I could revisit the television series, two seasons of which have been released on Apple TV and are still available to watch with the promise of a third coming later this year.

When you have lost your heart to a series of books, it’s with trepidation that you watch the live version, the characters and stories you have invested in. But with this one, it’s all systems go. While Gary Oldman didn’t pop into my mind as Jackson Lamb, once the actor had inhabited the man, there was no one else who could have stepped into those slippery Lamb shoes with such relish and robust. And ditto to Kristin Scott Thomas in the role of Lamb’s nemesis as she plays his arrogant and disdainful boss at MI5. There are few actresses who can play elegant haughtiness with such ease. And the rest of the cast complete the picture magnificently.

Mick Herron must be thrilled with this adaptation which so sharply captures the essence of both the people and the place of this much loved series. And hopefully we will be able to catch up on the full series – and a few yet to be written, in the years to come.

If any of the above appeals to you, don’t hesitate. It’s a glorious addiction and one I plan to hold onto for as long as possible!

  • Published by John Murray, it is distributed by Jonathan Ball locally.

AUTHOR SIHLE KHUMALO KEEPS IT LIGHT WHILE SPEAKING HIS MIND ON SERIOUS ISSUES

~ debeernecessities

With his latest book Milk The Beloved Country (Umuzi), author Sihle Khumalo speaks his mind on many issues, and with the focus on local, it gives readers the chance to reflect on what they have and what the future holds for this country and its people. DIANE DE BEER spends some time with the man who has much on his mind and likes to share:

At our first meeting I realized that it would be impossible to try to give a summary of who this man, Sihle Khumalo, is.

I culd capture more of this prolific writer by giving you the titles of the books he has already written: Dark Continent – My Black Arse; Heart of AFRICA; Almost Sleeping My Way to Timbuktu; and Rainbow Nation My Zulu Arse.

And then the one I will focus on most sharply here, his latest, Milk The Beloved Country. He tells that the first book was  the result of his travels from Cape Town to Cairo using public transport. This was also to celebrate his 30th birthday.

In 1999, to celebrate his 24th birthday, he bungee jumped at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe; for his 25th he ran the Comrades Marathon (11hours 40 minutes); for his 27th birthday, in 2002, he started parachuting (on static line) at Pietermaritzburg’s Oribi airport ; in 2003, he did aerobatic flying (as a passenger) at Rand airport.

He currently lives in Johannesburg with his wife and two children. And the two women he dedicates the book to is his mother and his mother-in-law. For me that also speaks volumes and probably more revealing than anything I could add.

Perhaps this is not the kind of book that would have caught my attention if I didn’t have to speak to Sihle publicly – twice – which also meant I read the book twice. That in the end was a good thing, because it was with the second reading that I realised exactly what he was doing. It seems to be all over the place and yet, after a more careful reading, I was starting to get the drift of this very active mind.

Sihle Khumalo will have you thinking. With this smartly tongue-in-cheek book, what had me doing just that from the start, was wondering how he comes up with the concept. And even now I’m still not sure he knows. He has an active mind and personality (if that’s possible) but once you pin him down and start taking his words seriously, he has some very interesting stories to tell and points to make.

Myself (Diane de Beer ) with authors Sihle Khumalo and Deborah Steinmair at the Vrye Weekblad Book Festival at Cullinan earlier in April.

But take note, there is sleight of hand, because it might all seem frivolous, yet it’s anything but.

His previous books are travel-driven, so the research was done while visiting different places, but in this instance, the research had to come in more traditional fashion; libraries for example rather than the excitement of travel.

But he wanted to do it this way and it will be interesting to watch his future adventures to see whether they will be of the physical or mental kind.

The book is neatly divided into three sections, starting with the names of especially smaller towns and villages and where these come from. It’s intriguing and something all of us might have thought of or even discussed with children during tedious journeys, but he makes a study of it. And while there’s much to smile at, he also makes sure to spotlight some sharply observed issues, as this following notice in https://theconversation.com/africa daily email reaffirms:

“Today marks 60 years since Kenya attained internal self-rule from the British colonial powers. Names of places and other urban symbols were used as tools of control over space in many African countries during the colonial period. This strategy was epitomised by the British, who applied it vigorously in the Kenyan capital Nairobi from the late 1800s. Street names celebrating royalty and officialdom dominated the central part of the city, while African names were relegated to peripheral neighbourhoods. Melissa Wanjiru-Mwita explains the ways in which this strategy actively alienated the native African majority while promoting the political, ideological and racial dominance of the colonialist.”

What tickled me though is remembering the fuss from the white population about changes to the names of towns and provinces, for example when we were just staring out on our democracy in the early 90s. I can remember the anxiety expressed while wailing about their heritage ….

Much of the name changing has happened without fuss but, as Sihle reflects, many more changes wouldn’t be a bad idea – including the name of our country which to his mind, points to a destination rather than something which would reflect the people living there. I still have to scratch my head to remember and hold on to some of the name changes, but they do make sense and feel much more part of the continent, the country and all its people.  It is the diversity of the country that is our strength and it should be reflected in as much as possible publicly so that it becomes commonplace.

The second section starts with the intriguing quote: You’ve got to find some way of saying it without saying it (Duke Ellington) and this is something that I personally think drives Sihle’s writing.

Titled The Power Brokers he dives right in, exploring our very own secret society, the Broederbond. He starts with the role players and their influence and then moves on to the private sector and intelligence.

As with the names of towns, which most South Africans might say they’re familiar with, the Broederbond because of its secrecy was intriguing to many, but for those of us not invested in the politics of the apartheid state, we thought we knew more than we actually did. And this, coming from an outside point of view as well as after the fact (or so we hope!), reminds us where we come from when we start pointing fingers.

Politics has always been about power and we can only hold thumbs that it comes from a good place – even if just most of the time.

Drawing a line through all that secrecy, he moves to different groupings of people including the freemasons; the unions and then couples the taxis, religion and traditional leaders together concluding with The Masses and sadly, the fact that we the people warrant less than a third of a page, says it all. That and the first sentence: There is nothing significant to report here.

What I also like about this particular section is the comparison of the past with the present. Corruption for example, we all speak about it as if it’s something new. Read on …

And in conclusion, Sihle tells us to Pause and Ponder:

Two weeks after the 2021 insurrection, The Washington Post described our “celebrated rainbow nation” as the “global poster child of economic inequality where deep poverty sits in the shadow of astronomical wealth.” If that doesn’t make you weep, nothing will.

He sums up the apathy by focusing first on the Feeding frenzy on state resources. I know that surprised me most post 94. I didn’t think that the leaders would turn their back on the very people who needed their assistance most. (And I do understand that they had the best examples in the former white regime).

For those of us puzzled by the ruling party’s elective conferences, he takes a closer look at: 2007, 2012 and 2017.

The Constitutional Court and the judiciary also come into play. It’s under attack in so many countries, the US and Israel, to name a few? It’s always been my beacon of hope, and I do still in spite of, believe that our people, our strength will pull us through. Sihle speaks his mind as he does on the following hair raising issue: Is South Africa a failed state? And when exactly was it captured?

And then finally, on a second reading, this lucky packet of a book truly spoke to me. Not just about what he was writing about but also learning more about this man with his wandering mind. I have heard different opinions about his writing. I cannot speak to any other than this latest book.

Some could argue that Sihle Khumalo is a man of too many seasons. But he speaks his mind and where that takes us is what appealed to me. As a fellow South African, I want as many opinions as are out there because in the end, most of us just want to be left to get on with our lives. And, if possible, to have a government that lends a helping hand. Life is tough enough without any extra hindrances.

And while some might be milking the beloved country, we should remember what we have and that the people and the place are real strengths and not something to mess with.