Sylvaine Strike, director/actor/playwright and any other creative word one can dream up, teamed with three other brilliant creatives, Toni Morkel (director), Andrew Buckland (fellow actor) and Tony Bentel, musical genius to create the dreamily magical Firefly currently in its last week at the Pieter Toerien Theatre at Montecasino. Having seen it for the third time at the weekend, this is a copy of my original review to encourage anyone who hasn’t yet seen it, to go. It will warm your heart and the glow will last for the longest time.
DIANE DE BEER reviews:
Scenes from Firefly with Sylvaine Strike and Andrew Buckland:
Pictures by Nardus Engelbrecht
I was blessed to see Firefly at Cape Town’s Baxter Theatre with the emergence of live theatre following the pandemic.
The bewitching Firefly, which as one of the first Covid-19 impacted productions saw light of day as a Woordfees digital production, made a magically mesmerising transition. I had lost my heart earlier to the filmed production and was excitedly inquisitive at how that particular story – with many filmic tricks up its sleeve – would translate and transform on stage.
But this particular creative quartet (Strike, Andrew Buckland, Toni Morkel as director and Tony Bentel on piano) are the perfect combo. This is their theatrical landscape. Give them a stage and they will be telling stories in such an imaginative way, it becomes a visual feast.
Because they have all worked together, they understand each other’s strengths, and Morkel could stretch that piece of string intuitively with fantastically imaginative and explosive pyrotechnics.
Buckland and Strike are a brilliant blend of artistry with an instinct for detail that holds your attention gently yet persistently. Storytelling is their forte, aided by the fact that they have an endless supply of tools to draw on to embellish a wink or the final lift of a foot to express and underline the tiniest emotion.
It is theatre at its best when it has you smiling from start to finish because of the artistry, the wizardry of the production, the perfection of the coupling, and just the sheer audacity of the storytelling.
No matter how or why, just immerse yourself and see what happens when Saartjie Botha commands two artists to give her a production in the purest style of theatre.
If you have seen the digital version that’s a bonus, because to witness how one story can be told in such magnificent splendour in two completely different approaches is truly special and quite rare. The one had all the bells and whistles and worked like a charm. But here, with Strike and Buckland live on stage with just themselves to grab hold of their audience and cast that spell, the essence of theatre comes into play – and again I willingly lost my heart.
Add to the two artists on stage, the magnificence of Wolf Britz’s set and props as well as starstruck-inducing lighting and the keyboard genius of Bentel’s soundtrack that holds every emotion so thrillingly in a familiar yet completely Bentel-constructed composition.
If you want to see how the best make theatre with their instincts, intuition and imagination, don’t miss the sparkling Firefly. Yet don’t think for one second that the miracle unfolding on stage didn’t come with buckets of blood, sweat, tears and ENDLESS talent. Part of the theatrical trickery of this foursome is to present something that is this skilled as seemingly effortless.
It’s brilliant and personally I hope to see this travel around the country casting its spell throughout. We are desperately in need of this kind of adult fairy tale in these tumultuous times.
And with every fresh viewing, they’ve added fresh insight and sparkle if that’s even possible.
Book at Webtickets for any of the shows from tonight until Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 3 and 8pm; and Sunday at 2pm for their final bow.
If you think you know everything about Winnie and Nelson Mandela, award-winning author Jonny Steinberg will probably change your mind with his insightful portrayal of a couple who held the world’s attention for the longest time. Having read the book, DIANE DE BEER listens to the author speak about his latest endeavour:
Pictures from the book courtesy of the publishers
When I first spotted the book Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage (Jonathan Ball), it was the author Jonny Steinberg who caught my attention.
Not that the Mandelas aren’t worthy, simply that I didn’t think another book on the Mandelas could shed new light. But Steinberg changed that presumption.
From the first time I had to read a Steinberg book – as he was going to be a guest speaker at one of our newspaper’s book lunches – I was a fan.
Author Jonny Steinberg
The Number, which dealt with gangs, was the one that did it. I had very little interest in the subject, thought I knew enough, but having read Steinberg’s well-researched and analytically astute account, I wasn’t going to miss any of his books again.
And when I saw he was to be one of the speakers at the Franschhoek Literary Festival 2023 where I was invited to do an interview with the delightful Nataniël, I was sold on reading and listening to the author’s conversation with Hlonipha Mokoena, an associate professor and researcher at WiSER (Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research) where she specialises in African Intellectuals.
I picked the right one. Portrait of a Marriage should have been my clue because this is what this author does. He takes a topic which might not have crossed your radar in any sense of the word, and turns it on its head in a way that pulls you in and grabs your interest. It’s a gift and one that has turned him into one (if not the top) of our best non-fiction writers.
And one of the first obstacles he encountered was a feeling of shame because he found himself prying into the private world of these two icons – once again. Initially, he was going to write two books, one on each of these individuals, until someone pointed out that one would perhaps be more sensible and, ultimately, probably better.
This is where his own thoughts probably gathered momentum and insight. The question he wished to explore was Nelson’s sense of being and how much that was entwined with Winnie, especially while in prison – which was a punishing 27 years long.
Nelson and Winnie, 1958, probably shortly before their wedding. Eli Weinberg, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives.
What Steinberg realised was that when imprisoned, Nelson didn’t know Winnie that well. That’s when a fantasy of the woman he loved started emerging. She became the dominant figure in his head. When a great man is written about, his personal life is obscured but the opposite is true for a woman. And this is where the blessing and curse of the Mandela name came into play.
With Nelson’s incarceration, the impact on Winnie and her two daughters was intense on many different levels. For instance, Nelson understood himself as head of the family and he wanted to preserve his wife and their marriage.
But this became difficult in prison because of their compromised relationship. All their conversations were recorded and transcribed. And again, it is these transcriptions that gave the author entrée and heightened insight into the Mandela couple. Yet in some ways they also made him a reluctant participant.
Prisoners breaking stones in the courtyard outside the leadership section on Robben Island. Nelson’s cell window is on the far right. Copyright of Cloete Breytenbach, courtesy of Leon Breytenbach.
Many issues come into play. Because they were being recorded, something they were aware of, these intimate conversations were compromised from the start. For Steinberg it became a compromising decision. Could he use these conversations without compromising the couple’s dignity? “It’s unusual to eavesdrop in this way,” he explained.
For example, the pettiness of an incarcerated Nelson was one of those situations for Steinberg, yet he knew if he wanted to write the book, he needed the information.
From very early on, Winnie used her sexuality as power, says the author. And Nelson in a similar vein was always very aware of how he looked in the suits he used to wear. Unusual at the time and with his presence, an additional bonus. “They understood that their very being was a commodity,” notes Steinberg.
One of the first photographs of Winnie Madikizela to be published. Bantu World/Arena Holdings.Winnie and daughter Zindzi leaving court in Bloemfontein, 1977. Winnie was charged with breaking the conditions of the order banning her to Brandfort. Bailey’s African History Archive/Africa Media Online.
Beauty complicated Winnie’s life. Right from the start, she was born into the struggle which determined her life. She understood how to pick winners and forget the losers. She also knew how to get under someone’s skin. Few people who met her could resist her and were left untouched.
In fact, it is the effect the Mandelas had individually and together that Steinberg explores and captures so well. Would life have been different if the couple had been less aware of their pulling power, their value as a commodity?
Winnie for example couldn’t be alone and always knew that she had to deliver on the expectations of others. She had to be what they wanted her to be. She even told tales about her childhood from very early on.
To protect herself, her reality often had to be concealed. Steinberg explains: she became the symbol of Black womanhood. She was able to become what people wanted and had a sense of her role in public life, believing that she was the centre piece.
For Nelson it was Fort Hare where the foundation of leadership was born.
When they came together, Winnie understood what it meant to be seen. The mission schools invested in the idea that Black men should marry Black women and the Mandelas represented that myth of the power couple. “Their marriage becomes a symbol for the struggle for freedom.”
Nelson and Winnie Mandela at the rally held to celebrate Nelson’s release at FNB Stadium near their Soweto home on February 13, 1990. nelson spent the previous night, his first bnack in Johannesburg, alone in a suburban house near Lanseria Airport. Photo by Udo Weitz/AP/Shutterstock (7364405a)
Nelson understood the power of his and Winnie’s story with the focus on the romance between them. Their power did represent a nation and yet, they ended up being political enemies. Is there anyone in South Africa who lived through their story and wasn’t shattered by the dissolution of their marriage?
The irony of their relationship was that for Nelson his greatest fear for his country was civil war, while his wife was the embodiment of everything he feared.
He becomes a powerful person, but in prison – and out of touch with what is happening. He is locked up by and with people who hate him and when he escapes, he does so in his imagination, The essence of Winnie’s life is her internal world of fire.
I was completely mesmerised by Steinberg’s deeply felt analytical writing about South Africa’s most powerful couple. Even before the advent of social media, with Nelson Mandela imprisoned and his wife under constant surveillance, they captured and kept the attention of the world.
Steinberg tells that story magnificently and with fresh insight and focus.
Meeting up with two of the four primary participants inthe South African Pavilion of the Biennale Architectura 2023 in Venice, it quickly becomes clear that it takes a village to raise a pavilion, as the pamphlet specially designed for visitors acknowledges. DIANE DE BEER talks to lecturer Stephen Steyn with Carla Spies (who is responsible for co-ordinating the whole project) about this year’s architectural adventure:
Stephen Steyn en Carla Spies on the build in Venice.Emmanuel Nkambule at work on the project in Venice.Stephen Steyn studying the plans in Venice.Sechaba Maape with one of his printed sketches which is part of the Organization of Non-human beings concept.
When the core group of Carla Spies (Spies Architects), Stephen Steyn (lecturer at the Department of Architecture and Industrial Design at TUT), Dr Sechaba Maape (senior lecturer at the Wits School of Architecture and Planning) and Dr Emmanuel Nkambule (senior lecturer at the Department of Architecture and Industrial Design at TUT) got together, they played with the idea that we live in a unique country and that being in this place affects how we live.
That is where they wanted their focus to be and what they hoped to visually explore and exhibit at the Biennale.
All in the field of architecture, their interest and research were aligned, which meant that each one brought something specific to the project.
Digital visuals as part of the South African Pavilion.
Stephen explains that we identify with things, creatures, ideas and, most significantly, other people. Identities, which are what drive this project, like walls, contain, convene and comfort us, but should they be too solid and too insistent, they imprison us. “It is something that defines you,” he explains, “but it shouldn’t be seen as just one thing.”
Between the abstract binary poles of ‘freedom’ and ‘containment’ there is architecture. By using our imaginations, we choose how we identify as active, conscious agents. He argues that while a space might define its occupants, it shouldn’t confine them.
Before the ‘primitive hut’, in fact, before the wall itself was conceived of as a construction, the natural world had supplied us with the architecture of the cave. The cave wall is simultaneously a containing element, and a surface of representation. Beyond this wall exists another world – intimately connected to our own, but with its own logics and forces.
The hanging ropes starting to take shape. The group from Kent&Lane who fastened the ropes to the tiles for the eventual hanging.
The future is unknown. From that darkness, full of both fears and hopes, architects pull images which, like self-fulfilling prophecies, become the future itself through construction.
It is not fail proof; like any prophecy, it remains vague no matter how clearly articulated. And it is always subject to the influence of enormously varied and powerful forces as it travels from the world beyond the surface of representation – where the future and the past co-mingle – to our own.
And part of their quest was to reach out to the pre-colonial past, into the present post-colonial era to determine the future. Histories are alive and should constantly be revised, because so much has not been recorded in traditional ways.
The main pavilion structure (designed by Stephen and realised by Carla with the help of many others), invites visitors to a ritual performance of collective identification, community formation and initiation.
Then the exhibition unfolds and reveals itself through three zones.
Five individual weavers were on board to make the woven artefacts which would represent scaffoldingThe social structures of the Bokoni are represented by weaving practices.
Zone I is titled The Past Is the Laboratory of the Future, and traces historical links to the architectural representation of social structures as documented in pre-colonial southern-African societies.
Scattered over 10 000 square kilometres of grassland in Mpumalanga lie the ruins of a vast civilization known as the Bokoni. The architecture of the Bokoni consisted primarily of two materials: permanent, dry-stacked stone, and ephemeral, hand-woven grass.
Rather than captured in books, the social structures (how they lived and functioned) of the Bokoni are preserved in the visible plan forms of their homesteads, and are represented by weaving practices, which can only be inferred from sub cultures still practising grass weaving today. For this element, five individual weavers were brought together to make woven artefacts that serve as scaffolding for another construction; that of a social as well as a professional network, and thus representing a community.
Part of Nkambule’s model which represents a “modern”Bokoni society.
They also found a digital way of showing the enduring solidity of the dry-stacked stone used in the construction of a Bokoni homestead, which can be accessed by a visitor to the pavilion on their smart phone.
This contemporary interpretation of traditional social practices, as they are manifested in spaces and thresholds still being built today, connects our distant history with our present and, through re-interpretation, sets new trajectories for the future.
Zone II is titled The Council of (non-human) Beings, and contains contemporary drawings on the topic of animism in architectural practice.
Here the work of Dr Maape is presented in a space inspired by the caves of Kuruman in South Africa — spaces that are dark and removed from day-to-day life, and primarily used for initiation rituals.
Venice Biennale
In this setting, large digital prints of the living landscape, drawings that are themselves set in blackness, emphasise the value of dark and black spaces within the cultural practices of indigenous communities of South Africa.
Initiates are challenged to face their fears by facing the stereotypes of ‘dark/black as evil’, the ‘dark continent’ or ‘black magic’, inverting and exposing the false and sinister narrative of the metaphor of ‘light’ or ‘enlightenment’ in its colonial manifestation.
Part of Nkambule’s model which represents a “modern”Bokoni society.
Combining these influences with the indigenous knowledge of his home, Maape generates works that question the way we see the earth on which we design and build.
He proposes a practice that seeks the council of all beings, human and non-human, in the production of architecture, and suggests that it is in reframing concepts like ‘context’ or ‘site’ that we may be more responsive to our current planetary crises
Zone III is titled Political Animals, and presents the organizational and curricular structures of South African architecture schools as architectural objects.
They invited students and staff from South African schools of architecture to construct sample representations of the Laboratories of the Future in which they are embedded and of which they are part. The competition format was adjusted to engage with Stephen’s research and curatorial project, resulting in six entries constructed with the assistance of Johannesburg-based ModelArt.
In the process of being transformed.
Most of this has been done in South Africa, because of the rand/euro exchange. Carla flew to Venice this a month ago to start co-ordinating the installation of the pavilion and the rest of the crew involved in the setting up, including the other three core members, followed a week later.
It is a major undertaking, but if one views their narrative (some of which I hopefully captured) with images of what’s to come, the intent and inclusive nature with which the project was put together and run, South Africans should be holding thumbs and be proud of this young team of architects who have taken our architectural heritage with visions of the future to represent us at the prestigious 18th Biennale Architectura 2023.
* The 18th International Architecture Exhibition, titled The Laboratory of the Future and curated by Lesley Lokko, will be open from 20 May to 26 November 2023.
Pictures taken off the screen by directors Toni Morkel and Jaco Bouwer during the film shoot:
If you haven’t yet seen Sylvaine Strike’s wondrous Firefly, Pieter Toerien’s Montecasino Theatre is presenting another season from May 19 to June 11. It’s a once-in-lifetime theatrical experience with two seasoned artists stepping into the magical world of storytelling in a way that plays with your imagination in the best possible sense. If you want to know more, see below. This is the story written when they first stepped onto stage following covid:
The Countess Pafanesca in the Vodka Tango
When you are excited by the group of artists who have come together to make theatre, sparks can fly. And that’s exactly what can happen with the first live run of Firefly, a production that was created to celebrate live theatre. DIANE DE BEER speaks to a few of the artists involved:
Theatre fans are blessed with the latest Sylvaine Strike, Andrew Buckland and Toni Morkel collaboration as they bring Ferine and Ferase (which was filmed by Jaco Bouwer for the Woordfees digital programme) to life on stage – as it was originally planned.
This is the second time this trio have combined their creative talents (the first was in the much lauded Tobacco and the Harmful Effects Thereof) even if the roles have been switched. Firefly was written by Sylvaine Strike and Andrew Buckland and devised for the stage by the full company (Andrew, Sylvaine Toni Morkel, Tony Bentel) and directed by Toni Morkel with Tony Bentel on piano..
Sylvaine Strike and Andrew Buckland at play.
The initial name was derived from two chemical components luciferin and luciferase, which exist in a firefly’s bum and make it glow, explained Sylvaine. “So one without the other can’t make light, they have to be together to glow. Lots of fireflies in this show.” And that is why it is now called the more familiar Firefly.
The play was first created on commission by head of the Woordfees Saartjie Botha in September 2020, three-quarters of the way through the first tough lockdown. The idea was to create something that would show audiences why theatre is unique and exciting. Saartjie didn’t want a big set, she didn’t want audiovisuals, no multimedia, only pure theatre. “We want body and craft and what the actor is,” was the instruction.
Because of lockdown, they started writing remotely through October, November and December and in mid-January last year (2021) met in a rehearsal room with their director. With Tony Bentel on piano, they began to develop the story on their feet to find a common language between Sylvaine and Andrew, who both have very specific styles. But when this trio are tasked to make theatre, that’s exactly what they do.
It’s all in the telling of the tale.
They discovered and developed a mutual style for the two actors largely based on clowning duos. Think Laurel and Hardy, for example, that kind of world, very much a nostalgic, romantic story where they play three different characters each, with the narrators the main characters called … Ferine and Ferase. They have a backstory of their own, which they tell as travelling players of Bucket’s End. It’s a time of magic and wonder which allows you to sit back, be transported and dream, a luxury in these times.
“It’s beautiful, it’s very physical, it’s gorgeously costumed with each a standard clowning costume that transforms into a couple of things,” Sylvaine embroiders.
Every detail tells a story.
From the start it was meant to play on stage and they had a short trial run with a 45-minute version. But this all had to take on a different hue when live changed to digital and they spread their special brand of fairy dust.
The full play was filmed with Sylvaine enchanted with Jaco’s extraordinary transformation from stage into film, shot in studio, all in black and white, inspired by old movies. And those of us lucky enough to have seen it, agree.
It was delightful to witness how they adopted and adapted for the new medium with all the elements colliding and fusing.
And now they’re back on stage and it will be marvellous to be experience yet another transformation. Personally, I can’t wait!
Crafting a clutch of characters with craft and creativity.
Sylvaine and Andrew make perfect sense together and then to have the extraordinary Toni Morkel directing is genius.
As she has often been directed by Sylvaine and performed with Andrew, she was terrified yet thrilled when asked but she trusted her instincts because all three of them know one another well and understand each other’s particular theatre language.
“I’m very excited to do it live,” says Toni, who has just started with rehearsals again. These are two actors who know how to act with their whole being and she finds herself smiling as she watches them go through their moves. “I’m living my dream,” says this consummate theatre maker.
The great difference between the screen and stage version is most specifically the sets. The two actors with their costumes and imagination have to construct their world on stage. And while it is sometimes frustrating to remember what they could do on film, the stage version is what they envisioned from the start.
“We wanted to create a play that would travel easily and anywhere – whether we had lights, curtains, even a stage,” she says. And knowing what they have achieved in the past together and individually, this is not an impossible ask. It has always been part of their theatre ethos, and while it might have been initiated by a scarcity of funds, it also focused their imaginations magnificently.
Andrew Buckland and Sylvaine Strike in Firefly.
“I know their world, their physical ability and strength and how they work,” she says about the process. “What we are relying on is good old-fashioned storytelling.”
She does have two more aces up her sleeve with Wolf Britz again making magic with his wondrous lighting and he has a few more tricks in the bag. And there’s Tony Bentel’s wizardry on piano. “I can’t help but gush when speaking of his astonishing ability. He has a world of music in his body,” is how she explains this gifted musician who accompanies the two actors live.
“For any section of the play, he comes up with five or six different musical suggestions and because he is adept with improv, he can embellish what the actors are trying to express at any moment. I am constantly in awe of what he has arranged musically.
Liza Grobler Festival Artist and the winner of the art prize captures the essence of her Karoo which constantly changes.
Art has always played an important role at the festivals, with the Klein Karoo National Festival one of my favourite viewing venues. DIANE DE BEER tells you why:
It has to do with the place, because they have easy access to different venues and spaces, but perhaps because of the length of the festival, it has also meant that you have time to meander and really take note of the art.
Another reason might be the more recent introduction of curator Dineke van der Walt. Her choice of themes and artists has been unusual, varied and always presenting a large number of artists who I had no knowledge of.
That doesn’t necessarily mean anything except that I don’t pay enough attention during the year and the festivals mean that artists from around the country are on display.
Curator Dineke van der Walt on one of her many walk-abouts. Picture: Hans van der Veen.
This year was no exception and I was lucky enough to catch one of Van der Walt’s walk-abouts which for this art fan is always a bonus and a learning experience. Sometimes the artists or the curators are around and do the talking, but other times, Van der Walt told the story. Keep this one in mind for the future.
This year’s theme very aptly was Hide and Seek: Reimagined Histories. It’s about taking a much wider and more representative look at the world. For far too long, stories have been told from a specific vantage. It has long been time to fling open those doors and allow the light in. We all gain from a wider and more honest perspective – on every level.
There are too many artists and venues to include here, but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t many more worthy of a mention. Simply that I had to make a choice, and for the moment, these were my picks.
Two stood outside of the parameters of the St Vincent Building which exhibited most of the art. Another well-deserved extension of Karoo Kaarte, was yet again a fantastic example of how art can include a much wider audience as well as introduce participants to a new way of expressing themselves.
Collages and narratives feature strongly in this project and this time they were displayed in full view of everyone in town because at some point they would have passed these beautifully illustrated windows and stopped by to see what was happening.
The pictures best tell the story that is one that should just keep on running. Here are some of the collages in the building where they presented daily workshops.They had many contributions and one they cleverly slipped into the exhibition space was the way they re-imagined children’s games from the past ,which some of us might remember like kennetjie, skaloeloe, drieblik and gaatjie. These were then explained in a pamphlet with instruction-driven drawings to show the way. It’s also another way of appealing to the youngsters attending the festival.
The other was a series of site specific installations which apparently were meant to be quite hidden, but for hurried festinos it might have been a hazard rather than an adventure.
Three derelict buildings were selected as the backdrop for Norman O’Flynn and ONE. with the trio of installations titled Transparent. The idea was to lift these structures, which have probably for many years gone unnoticed, out of their environment by applying a quite ordinary yet eye catching pattern.
What they were hoping to achieve was to show the way society deals with issues like poverty, inequality and violence in a community, by turning a blind eye.
It was a wonderful exercise apart from the difficulty in finding especially one of the installations. The point about hidden had already been drawn by picking these structures all on the edge of society.
Art is enough of a niche not to add obstacles to further shift it closer to the edge.
Kanna for Best Presentation – visual arts, sponsored by Absa: Liza Grobler – Inkommers, laatkommers & laatlammers, as well as the Droom installation”:
And then moving inside to be enveloped by the colourful explosion of the Festival Artist. Liza Grobler dabbles in many different ways of making art. With the title Inkommers, laatkommers en laatlammers, this recent Oudtshoorn inhabitant was clearly stating her case.
Pictures Hans van der VeenThe work is titled Queen of the Night and beaded by a group called
Qaqambile Bead Studio., a small business who work with contemporary artists who produce these panels out of glass seed beads. They have been working together since 2004 and have produced more than a 100 panels.
From her side, there’s an exuberance, an energy and enthusiasm that’s catching. She targets the imagination not only with her variety of work but also with the way she invites you to engage with her art.
Stringing along while playing with your mind.
There’s a playfulness that’s engaging and yet her work is loaded with meaning if you take the time to explore and engage. And here the title took you by the hand and pointed the way.
A croched installation with the word dream done in eight different languages by Liza Grobler and local creatives the ReWOLusie. Picture Fahiem StellenboomThe collective responsible from ReWOLusie. Picture: Hans van der Veen
As did her outside installation with the word DROOM in eight different languages. She also encourages others to dream by having workshops and including other Oudtshoorn creatives to collaborate.
Another artist’s work that grabbed my heart was titled Untitled: the Dumisani Mabaso Retrospective. I was immediately bowled over by the work, the emotional impact, the diversity, the way Mabaso moved from one visual look to the next.
A city scape.Playing with the rainbow nation. Dumisani Mabaso’s Visiting the Sick.
Only then did I wonder about the artist and why I had never seen or perhaps noticed his work before? He was a painter, a master printmaker and a jazz musician, and all of these influences played a role in his art.
His approach was gentle but, living from 1955 to 2013, his art spoke to the time and the conditions of the disenfranchised and disaffected. And he never stopped. His was always a fight for the poor and the working class and for their emancipation.
A trio of Mabaso sketches that reminds of costume portraits with their delicacy.
This retrospective resulted from consultations with the Mabaso family by the William Humphreys Gallery about the importance of underlining his importance and contribution to South African art.
We are the richer for this inheritance.
Johan Stegman’s solo ‘n Goeie dag vir ‘n slag
Two other notables include the work of Johan Stegman who was very articulate in explaining the title of his exhibition: ‘n Goeie dag vir ‘n Slag.
It’s all about the one who writes the history and from where it is interpreted. Rather than argue the facts, he takes the battle of Blood River, the legendary fight between the Voortrekkers and the Zulus, and investigates it from different angles with the idea that this will offer different perspectives.
Included are other works which immediately point you to the way his mind works.
In another grouping, Is ons nog ‘n ding, he smartly invited Lawrence Lemaoana to co-curate with a title exploring the use of the term Afrikaner which can be used or abused by white Afrikaans artists to explore their shared needs and desires.
Mary Sibande as part of another perspective in Is ons nog ‘n dingThe zone of being and non being explored in Is ons nog ‘n ding
The white artists’ lager only gains huge perspective when the work of a few outsiders is included, in this instance that of Lemaoane and his wife, Mary Sibande. You cannot find a more powerful art couple to make this point.
The worth of any work only comes into play when it is compared with others.
As already said, there are many other exciting examples, and the engaging and provocative approach of the art at this year’s festival again contributed to many conversations, in general and in particular, that is what it is meant to evoke.
Festivals, each one of them, are their own creatures. They’re put together in a way that hopes to attract audiences and once they’re there, will feed and nourish them in many different ways. That’s exactly what this year’s Klein Karoo National Festival achieved and here are just a handful of reasons why. DIANE DE BEER gives her impressions of some of the best:
Pictures: Hans van der Veen
Picture (above) capturing the Karoo by Fahiem Stellenboom.
First the music productions:
Stylish simplicity of Woordmusiek staging.
Woordmusiek: One of the toughest things is to keep a stage/performance career going. Coenie de Villiers knows this.
Stylish simplicity of Woordmusiek staging. (Van der Veen)
Especially on the music side. Even if someone like De Villiers is hugely popular, his music part of the Afrikaans lexicon, and his performance style slick and always smartly rehearsed.
It’s quite something to keep reinventing yourself, however. How long will an audience keep listening to the same songs done in exactly the same style and presentation?
Coenie de Villiers (Van der Veen)
De Villiers has always had the key to renewal: collaboration. And while that can also work against you because it can be seen as too gimmicky, he has the musical and performance nous to make it work – and in this instance, brilliantly.
With this one, he decided to focus on his lyrics. He cleverly invited three of our top actors, all with distinct voices – Jana Cilliers, Vinette Ebrahim and Antoinette Kellermann – to read his lyrics as if poems, which they are when done in this way. And in between, he performed his music, some with, and others without song.
Voices that opened vistas.
The staging was stylish without any frills, and guitar genius Mauritz Lotz provided another musical element – and voila, it was a sublime performance with not a note or sound out of place.
Anders/Eenders: a musical ensemble that sparkled. Each individual performer had his/her own style and together, they blend and cook musically.
There’s the superb songbird Sima Mashazi with the extraordinary voice and stage presence; African guitar genius Louis Mhlanga who is as gentle as his music is glorious; the exuberant Riaan van Rensburg on percussion; keyboard king Ramon Alexander; and brilliant producer/bass Schalk Joubert who always looks as if he is enjoying making music while finding the best sounds.
The fact that they all compose and perform their own music adds to the special sound they create as a group. It is the best of who we are, with music that covers the spectrum and tells stories that criss-crosses the country and holds us all together.
You walk out of there overwhelmed and bouncing with African rhythms. It’s a blast and so much part of the South African fabric.
Kanna for Best Presentation – music, sponsored by Castle Lager: Ver innie wêreld Kittie ; Kanna for Best Ensemble, sponsored by Kunste Onbeperk; Ver innie wêreld Kittie
David Kramer in conversation with Hugo TheartDavid and André Terblanche.
Ver Innie Wêreld Kittie: It might be an intimate setting, but it’s a huge story with heart – and one of David Kramer’s best. I loved the intimacy of the staging with only four dazzling actors/singers (Dean Balie, Rushney Ferguson, Jenny Stead and André Terblanche) and two musicians, Nick Turner and Yvan Potts.
In 1952, Doris Day and Frankie Lane had a hit with Sugarbush, which was apparently written by Josef Marais (the stage name of Joseph Pessach). Marais and his wife Rosa de Miranda became hugely successful in the US as a folk duo who sang Afrikaans songs translated by Marais into English.
Back home and much later, Kramer hears about Marais’s talent because these two musos both grew up in Worcester. But no one remembers Marais, except Renaye Kramer’s aunt Lily Lange who was courted in her youth by Pessach, who wasn’t considered a good enough catch by the family.
From left: , Jenny Stead , dean Balie, Rushney Ferguson, André Terblanche with David and KKNK CEO Hugo Theart.
Weaving all these stories together, Kramer adds meat to the story by telling a tale of appropriation, something which has long been a problem on especially the African continent. The performers, the staging, the story, the words, used very sparsely but specifically, and the way Kramer tells the story, all contribute to a magical musical affair.
As usual, Kramer has excelled in the casting, with this quartet bursting with talent. And keeping it small, hopefully this one will travel far and wide. It’s a universal story told with heartiness and honesty by performers who are world class.
And then theatre:
Kanna for Best Interpretation, sponsored by Wicus Pretorius: Dawid Minnaar – Mirakel
Dawid Minnaar in a delicious performance with a brave Bettie Kemp who sailed through the play brilliantly as a last-minute replacement.
I have to start with Reza de Wet’s Mirakel ,directed by by her close friend Marthinus Basson. This has always been a stage match made in heaven.
But I hadn’t realised that this was a play I had never seen – and what a delight with a darkness captured in the script. De Wet can be quite melancholy with stories that tear you apart as she scratches around in the psyche of her people.
The cast of Mirakel with a fully cooked dinner including roast lamb … every performance!
But here she looks at a theatrical touring group with a much more gentle eye as she captures all the stereotypes in what can be a very melodramatic world. All the world’s a stage and nowhere is this more true than here.
And Basson’s first masterstroke was the casting. Dawid Minnaar’s performance sets the tone and gives free rein to the rest of the cast as they all swing into over-the-top storytelling that will have you in stitches.
But what lingers is the toughness that is here hidden by play, the struggle to practise something that brings pleasure. The way we regard and value our artists and allow them the space to breathe and to grow. All of which in the long run will bring huge rewards.
The drama of a traveling theatre company.The staging of Mirakel
I hope this can travel all over and play as many runs as can possibly be imagined. If ever you want to flee the problems of the present, this is where you want to go. It’s fun, it sketches a world we are all familiar with but perhaps not often part of and it allows the actors to go at it full tilt – and no one does it quite as deliciously and with so much relish (one can almost see him smacking his lips as he enters the stage) as Minnaar.
This is one I will cherish for a long time as the depth of what De Wet wanted us to contemplate lingers.
Kanna for Best Design and Technical Contribution, sponsored by Herotel: Craig Leo and Neil Coppen for the concept and design of Droomkraan Kronieke; For a second year running and deservedly so Herrie Prize for innovation or ground-breaking work, sponsored by Kunste Onbeperk: Karoo Kaarte
The enchanting cast of Droomkraan Kronieke stole hearts and more.
And as with Mirakel, similar things can be said of Karoo Kaarte’s Droomkraan Kronieke.
If anyone were wondering about the viability and sustainability of this dream project driven by Neil Coppen and Vaughn Sadie, they simply had to witness the leap this team has made in just a year following last year’s Op Hierdie Dag, which also received much praise, seven nominations and a win for artist Marinda Ntantiso.
This time they were aided by internationally renowned puppet master Craig Leo as well as actor Carlo Daniels, and the full team of actors worked much more in a cohesive unit, than the previous time.
It was a fun, emotionally fulfilling and rewarding experience as the actors displayed their performance skills, exuberance and energy and their growth in professional approach and execution.
This is a production that will play anywhere without any explanation needed of where they come from and who they are. That’s simply embellishment and heightens the admiration one feels for what they have achieved and the lives that are changed. Both for those performing and watching.
I wrote a huge piece on Karoo Kaarte last year (check for it in my blog if you want background), but it should also stand as a blueprint of how to make a festival (or any event) inclusive in an attempt to upend the status quo.
What Droomkraan Kronieke achieves more than anything else is to show and point to the potential right in front of our eyes and what happens when two artists (with the help of gracious donors and many other hands) can achieve with a community that has previously been held back and not given the opportunities.
Kanna for Best Director, sponsored by the ATKV Nicola Hanekom – Mirre en aalwyn; Kanna for Best Presentation – theatre, sponsored by the Het Jan Marais Nationale FondsMirre en aalwyn; Kanna for Best Literary Contribution, sponsored by NATi; Nicola Hanekom – Mirre en aalwyn (original script).
Leading the way, a heartbreaking performance by Amalia Uys.
Finally, Nicola Hanekom is back with yet another of her shattering site-specific pieces Mirre en Aalwyn, and as always she’s tuned into the zeitgeist, with abuse the one issue that has for many years grabbed the headlines. More than ever, it is critical in communities worldwide and in South Africa in particular.
There’s hardly a woman who reaches adulthood who cannot speak of an incident and often worse that can be ticked off as abuse. (If anyone heard Trump’s recent monstrous ramblings, that says it all). And instead of things improving and more people taking up the cause, it’s as if people turn their heads away and ignore those talking too loudly.
Elzabé Zietsman is doing the festival circuit with her devastating solo Femme is Fatale and now Hanekom has also stepped into the arena with a piece that doesn’t flinch as they go full on to investigate this scourge in especially women’s lives.
And in this instance where it besets families and the women have no protection, no one to turn to, no positive role models, it’s almost as if they turn on themselves. It’s the only thing of value they have to display and that’s where they go. And to add to the dilemma, they have found a voice in social media where everything is amplified, not always in especially the vicitms’s interest.
Oudtshoorn with its spectacular weather and environment offers the perfect canvas and Hanekom has refined this gloves-off type of approach when dealing with tough topics.
Her cast, always handpicked with great care, tell a story that audiences have to hear, and Hanekom introduces enough darkness and light to hold the attention and make the most explosive impact.
If you don’t leave this one shattered, think again.
And watch out, it might be difficult to play somewhere else because it is site-specific, but when there’s a will, there’s a way. And for this one, that’s how it should be.
Until next year, meanwhile there’s the Karoo Klassique from 4 to 7 August later this year. Also check the next story on the fabulous art.
Book festivals are becoming more and more popular but if you think they’re easy to curate and organise, think again. You have to think about the where, when and who, what kind of topics you want to present, find a balance between light and weighty, none of which will give you a sure-fire result. Deborah Steinmair from Vrye Weekblad cooked with the right ingredients. DIANE DE BEER was there:
Pictures supplied by Vrye Weekblad
Talking books.Leonie van Rensburg from Graffiti Books in Montana.Book talk
Cullinan was the chosen spot for Vrye Weekblad’s first Gauteng Boekefees following the success of the Cape equivalent in Stilbaai last year. They’re also following with a third one in the Free State’s Clarens in July and there is talk of another one in the Cape. (If you’re interested, follow their social media…)
But this time, book genius Deborah Steinmair was the one who had to get all her ducks in a row. First she found the perfect venue, a church with a large hall, all on one property with parking across the road and in walking distance from where most people would be staying during the weekend.
Architecturally, if that’s your thing, it also had the perfect look. It is a Herbert Baker design after all and that’s what these kinds of towns dotted all across the country offer. Think Dullstroom, Clarens, Tulbach, and more…
And as the visitors started arriving on the Friday afternoon for the editors’ launch Daar’s ‘n Mier in my Broek (There are ants in my pants) with Max du Preez, Anneliese Burgess and Piet Croucamp, it was obvious that the weekend would draw a crowd.
Anneliese Burgess (right) and Piet Croucamp talk SA politics.
Politics in this country is part of our daily bread – especially now – and if you have a few breakaway voices setting the tone, you’re getting it right. But then that’s been a Vrye Weekblad trademark. You had to be there to catch their drift but what really hit the mark for me was the collective decision that we need new ideas not new ideologies.
And then a few pointers. Watch out for distractions. From what did the media turn their gaze when they were so obsessed with the Thabo Bester saga? But there’s good news on that front as well. Who would have known that Parliament could do such a deep dive when investigating Bester’s miraculous escape?
Lientjie Wessels (left) with chicken croquettes and venison and miso bobotie.
This was followed by another Deborah brainwave: asking one of our most inventive chefs, Lientjie Wessels, to host an old-fashioned grand dinner in what was once a diamond town.
The menu and pictures do the talking: from tomato soup with togarashi, to squash hummus, chicken croquettes, roasted beetroot with feta and herb crumbs followed by a venison and miso bobotie with the traditional yellow rice and pear chutney, and concluding with a Persian love cake with lemon caramel.
And if you are wondering, like I did, about togarashi, it is described as a common Japanese spice mixture containing seven ingredients. It’s one of the things I love about Lientjie’s food, I always learn something. Also, you know that every meal by this creative genius will be something extraordinary, and I’m not exaggerating.
We stayed in the Cullinan Hotel and here I also have to give a plug, I was pleasantly surprised. Nothing fancy, but smartly yet simply renovated furnishings in the rooms turned this into a pleasant stay as well
Dinner by candlelight at the Boekefees.
The next morning kicked off with Renée Rautenbach Conradie’s discussion with author Willemien du Preez on her book described as autofiction, ‘n Plaas se Prys. And what that means is that the story is based on her life but interwoven with fictional elements. The talk was titled Futility farm and the Afrikaner’s farm gene. The drift of the story is a couple following their dream, buying a farm and then finding themselves literally and figuratively overwhelmed by the elements – with dust and flies dominating.
It’s a universal story of broken dreams … and yet she lives to tell the tale and probably another, and another.
A highlight was a collective group of feisty women authors who captured the imagination and the spirit of the book fest.
Borrel, gorrel, smoeg en wroeg (loosely translated à la Shakespeare: boil, bubble, toil and trouble) Women who write can bewitch: including Gerda Taljaard (Vier Vroue), Bettina Wyngaard (Lokval), Renée Rautenbach Conradie (Met die Vierkleur in Parys), Michèle Meyer (Moer), Celeste Theron (her first will be released in the next few months), Emma Bekker (Vel), and Marida Fitzpatrick (Mara).
Deborah took the reins: one needs her kind of wicked humour to get the sharp-tongued talk going and with these more recent than others, but all spending stolen or free time on words.
Asked about feminism, the responses varied from an aversion to labels to Wyngaard’s struggle with the basics. If people aren’t accepted as equal yet, how can we ignore the fight?
Feisty females: Back: Emma Bekker, Gerda Taljaard, Marida Fitzpatrick and Renée Rautenbach Conradie; Centre: Celeste Theron and Bettina Wyngaard; Front: Michèle Meyer and organiser Deborah Steinmair.
Some members of the panel are inspired to write by history, others want to investigate certain questions, yet another talks about fever dreams or even nightmares when awake. There are also those thoughts that burst through from the unconscious just before you nod off and another feels for her, writing is the only way to express herself.
And just to throw the cat amongst the pigeons, Deborah wanted to know whether women write better sex scenes than men.
For Gerda it was simple: The male gaze can be quite technical. Replace that with a woman’s perspective and it’s softer, more subtle.
And then I have to agree with Anneliese Burgess about the deeply serious closing conversation of the day between editor Max du Preez and writers Johann van Loggerenberg (former head of the investigative unit at SARS) and Pieter du Toit discussing ANC Billionaires and Rogues.
It’s the kind of meaty discussion, “an in-depth analysis about the state of the nation”, is how Burgess describes is, you want to conclude with, even though I sadly had to leave after the cheerful chatter of the female authors.
Sunday suitably swung into a gathering of poets (Johan Myburg, Jolyn Phillips, Kirby van der Merwe, Eunice Basson, Martjie Bosman, Emma Bekker, Johann Lodewyk Marais, Pieter Odendaal and Jaco van der Merwe) who did their reading in the Baker church before a final meal with Frik de Jager whose selected dishes each told its own story.
And just like that, it was all finish and klaar. With the next one just around the corner.
The Head and the Load is about Africa and Africans in the First World War.
That is to say about all the contradictions and paradoxes of colonialism that were heated and compressed by the circumstances of the war.
It is about historical incomprehension (and inaudibility and invisibility).
The colonial logic towards the black participants could be summed up:
“Lest their actions merit recognition,
Their deeds must not be recorded.”’
The Head and the Load aims to recognise and record.
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE
Pictures supplied
SHOW: The Head and the Load
CONCEPT AND DIRECTOR: William Kentridge
COMPOSER: Phillip Miller
MUSIC DIRECTOR AND CO-COMPOSER: Thuthuka Sibisi
CHOREOGRAPHY: Gregory Maqoma
PROJECTION DESIGN: Catherine Meyburgh
COSTUME DESIGN: Greta Goiris
SET DESIGN: Sabine Theunissen
LIGHTING DESIGN: Urs Schönebaum
And the magnificent cast and musicians – with the African premiere dedicated to the original narrator Mncedisi Shabangu who sadly died last year.
DIANE DE BEER reviews:
And the top introduction by Kentridge gives you a pretty good idea of the load the artist, in many different disciplines, (and when not, he brings in others of his ilk) had in his head.
If you’re the one watching, it might just blow your mind. And if you’re familiar with his work, there’s much you will recognise as he often works with the same artists and combines original music with references to the period and composers of the time as well as texts, movement, shadow play and lighting.
You see a body marching in the distance (they use backstage for the performance because they need that length of space), and just the way he moves already tells you he is a dancer. But not any dancer, one of the best, Gregory Maqoma.
That’s how it runs all through the performers and the musicians. When I hear the brass sounds used in this specific way, it reminds me of the cacophony Emir Kusturica used in his war drama Underground to capture the sounds he associated with war.
And Philip Miller and Thuthuka Sibisi work similarly. They transformed traditional African songs as well as quotations from composers from the time of the war like Ravel, Hindeman, Satie and Schoenberg. It’s varied, as they mimic the different sections of the story, and the way the musicians and the singers use their voices is spectacular.
Just think of wind instruments. They’re used here in the true sense of the word. It’s as if the wind witnesses and blows silently through the space.
But let’s start at the beginning when the show starts. Performers have silently been slipping in and placing themselves inconspicuously in specific spots. And almost in one fell swoop, the giant screen, the lights and the cast come to life.
The audience, in touching distance, are instantly scooped up and almost thrown into the story and the action.
In one spot there’s the most exquisite Vermeer scene with bold Kentridge drawings and sketches, all heightened by the wonderful and magnified shadow play, while individual performers have all, as if magically wound up, started moving. And then the narrator starts with the tale.
Everything is part of the fabric, the texture, the mood and essence of the whole. It’s like a giant storytelling extravaganza yet this has no fairy-tale ending. There’s melancholia and war mania, and there’s the feasting on the foot soldiers as they are put to battle almost deliberately as war fodder. In one of the war reels, the African participants displayed in uniform are barefoot!
Kentridge puts the spotlight on World War One, but this time, he tells and shows it all. This he wants to record. And in full Kentridge splendour, he unravels and reveals everything he wants you to know. With this grand theatrical flourish he imprints the pictures and performances in your mind.
Having waited for Covid restrictions to be lifted to see the production, it has become even more relevant with first the Russian invasion of Ukraine and now also the frightening war in Sudan.
It’s impossible to take all the individual flourishes in and yet, it is an immersive theatrical experience which will linger and almost lay you low. But then the sense of wonder, the way of revealing the relentless horror and the sheer scale of the endeavour, are what keep swirling in your head.
Gauteng is blessed to have Kentridge in its midst and to witness this astounding theatrical avalanche so brilliantly composed and performed, which is – sadly – as relevant today as it was in 1918.
It is the playfulness, the sense of joy in artist Marinda du Toit’s work that first captures the imagination. But there’s much more than just laughter involved in what she describes as sculptures. They’re unusual, have a life of their own and if you listen carefully, they will tell you a story. DIANE DE BEER takes a closer look:
A colourful bunch
I lost my heart to Marinda du Toit’s sculptures the first time I saw them. She started three- dimensional work 17 years ago and I have always known her work would evolve.
There have been small changes along the way, and my most recent addition was a big one, an installation of a kind which features in my kitchen and brings me great joy.
Since she moved to the Cape a few years back with Covid thrown in-between, she has been missing from our galleries for some time. But she’s back with So gemaak en so gelaat staan (loosely translated as Was made like this, so stays like this) at the Association of Arts, Pretoria from tomorrow (Saturday, April 22) until May 6.
She describes the latest work as a stripped figure which can still read as a character, but it becomes a tree or a branch which is still in the process of growth.
“In 2019 I had an exhibition of heads and dolls (Poppe en Koppe). In my studio, I have a cupboard with drawers and in the one drawer, I keep the heads of dolls. I rarely use these heads, because there’s such a clichéd meaning to it with the Chucky dolls and the Walt Disney movies, but I kept them nevertheless.”
And she had a lot of sticks outside, because she is constantly making fences, working with sticks or harvesting sticks in Simonsberg amongst the alien growth. So she had a lot of sticks in stock.
She wanted something different (“go a little bit mad”, she says), so she put a lot of heads on sticks. “Some people thought it was extremely weird and some people loved it.”
Managing the process
And personally, she started falling in love with the stripped figure and the stick in hand that becomes something else; a weapon, a symbol, a crutch or anything you want to imagine. “We use sticks all our life, daily – think of brooms,” she explains.
So she started exploring the stick stories.
The magic of Marinda du Toit’s work (Artistic Photography)
She had to develop a way of presenting them neatly, standing upright, but how to assemble them, how to transport them, all became part of the puzzle. After many tries with cement and other methods, she developed the Escher-like leaf base, which also represents growth, or mulch and getting rid of aliens, and leaving it in the ground for new growth, “all these different metaphors,” she says.
“I can’t actually say what these sculptures mean, I just love them. I think it’s an ode to old toys, the era of plastic that’s gone, but we sit with it now, so let’s play. It’s playful, it’s a parade, a performance dance and celebration. It’s simply play, play, play!
Marinda wearing her heart on her sleeve (Picture: Artistic Photography)
“I just want to have fun and joy, there’s so much trouble and sadness.”
The new work differs from her previous, mostly individual pieces in that the pieces are stripped with no arms and legs, no recognisable figure, and she views it as much more of an installation than before, as well as more abstract.
The use of multiple colours is new and vibrant and personally I feel it has a stronger fairy-tale quality than before. It draws you into a narrative with storytelling becoming an active invitation.
She explains her desire to be joyous. “It happened within myself after recovering from cancer, many issues followed by therapy, troubles, a rocky road and healing. Then came Covid and no money.”
The pandemic was a major turning point for her. She and fellow artist Diek Grobler commented on the first 100 days of lockdown with postcards and multimedia, which was fun and gave them a voice. They found a way to engage the support of people who still buy and love art. And, she feels their success also followed because what they did was accessible and affordable.
Those first 100 postcards saved her life. “I then used all my savings, did one or two commissions, had fantastic clients who took care of me, and that was when all the paraphernalia and the fluff got stripped from my work.”
She discovered the essence of living and the essence of her art, which was how it manifested in the new work.
“It was all about being simplistic, being honest, being playful, being stripped, being real.”
She was also bored with the “poppe” which she felt she was almost turning into a mass-producing exercise and she became dissatisfied with the quality of her work. She felt driven by her monthly budget, what she needed to sell rather than inspiration. “Then you become flat, there’s no meaning, you’re just a machine.” It’s something I think every artist has to battle, with Covid heightening that kind of hysteria.
Pocket-sized poppets. (Artistic Photography)
Her response was to challenge herself with other projects and proposals and her work again started growing and evolving, but it was a difficult time.
Now she’s lost her heart and she can’t wait to show the new work. “It creates a challenge to look differently at objects and find new meaning in objects I selected or adapted,” she notes.
What she did was change the application rather than the object, which means she had to find meaningful objects.
And voilà!
It’s not as if fans of her work will not recognise and find some familiar figures at the exhibition. They can still construct and put together their own stories as they gather the Du Toit characters in a way that makes sense individually.
Dealing with bureaucracy is often challenging on any level or front. So when during some of our most stressful times, you happen to bump into individuals who not only do their work well but seem to make the effort to help you as best they can, it changes the nature of how you view the world. Often they aren’t in top positions so they cannot make all the decisions, but they will make sure that the path is smooth for you to achieve whatever you need to get done. DIANE DE BEER highlights some of her personal heroes of the past few months:
My sister who lives London and left the country in 1975 was back home for a three month visit. One of our first tasks was a visit to Home Affairs with a request for a new South African passport and ID.
I knew that this would be no small ask and was gritting my teeth from the start, but also determined that we would see this through and that there would be a way.
She has American citizenship, but didn’t want to relinquish her South African links. Dual citizenship was also necessary for certain practicalities.
We arrived early at Home Affairs, which I was already familiar with because I have been helping one of my employees, who we discovered to our dismay, doesn’t have any documentation. Yes, he is a South African and has been working for us for a long, long time, but my husband and I were both working all our lives and were unaware that he didn’t have any documentation … don’t ask. I was given a severe public scrubbing by a Home Affairs official.
Nevertheless, I was hopeful. Our first encounter was short and sweet in the sense that we were given the name of a head office employee and a phone number.
Just a little background. My sister had been to the South African equivalent in London and her ID and passport applications had been handed in a few years back. Regular visits to check on progress offered no hope and this is why she decided to return to source.
As we started our journey back home, we immediately phoned the number we were given to get the process started. This was in the first week of December last year. Her details were again taken with promises that the matter would be taken up with the London offices.
There was much toing and froing, too much detail to bore you with, but all of it seemed very hopeful. Phones were always answered and slowly the case was making progress. One of these was the information that her new ID had been processed and was waiting for collection at the London offices. Why she wasn’t told this or given the document at her last visit was unclear and we let it go. She will collect the ID now that she is back in London.
In the meantime, the passport became the priority and one of the issues was a visit we were planning in the new year to Mozambique. A South African rather than an American passport would mean no visa and we had also discovered that these would only be given when making the crossing into Mozambique, which could mean hours wasted. We couldn’t simply get it at their Pretoria offices. It seemed a very random decision, but they were very clear that it was the only way.
So our journey continued. In the meantime Christmas arrived and I decided not to bother our contact in the week before New Year. It just didn’t seem likely to my mind that anything would happen.
Instead she phoned us, reporting progress! To make a long story short. Our interaction and the progress with our Home Affairs contact was miraculous. From the start, our feelings were positive. It just seemed that this was an individual who was going to make this happen – and she did.
There were a few requests like filling in a new passport, for example, and writing a few notes so that our request for her to collect her passport at the local Home Affairs rather than in London was explained. The letter was even dictated, so that we would get all the wording right!
And never was any favour asked. And the only reason I am saying this is that stories abound how ordinary work only gets done in certain public and private enterprises if the worker is compensated in some way.
Not here. There was such fear from her side of any impropriety that we haven’t yet met her just to say thank-you in person. In the end, my sister collected her passport which she duly used in her crossing to Mozambique and we both lost our hearts to our Home Affairs saviour.
The only reason I am not using her name is to save her any embarrassment or long lines forming in front of her office with others lodging complaints.
Whenever I tell the story, I am inundated with cries of help from others who want their passport or ID problems resolved.
We struck it lucky, I know. But I also know that she cannot be the only one. And in a time when everyone is complaining about everything that goes wrong, she restored our faith in the civil service and the many gems that might be hidden in those government offices.
The fact that they are there was also confirmed when a friend and I did our regular renewal of driving licences, also in December. And this time I will give the name.
On a previous occasion, my husband had renewed his driver’s licence in the Cape because Gauteng’s system was in such disarray. But this time I was getting good reports about the offices in Echo Park, Centurion. This was the route we decided to go.
I made my appointment, but my friend decided to tag along, not having managed a booking. The building was in one of those office developments one sees from the highway between Tshwane and Joburg, not knowing who works there.
We found our way there with some directions, and once parked, we wound our way to what we expected would be a long queue. Not so.
Our police service was employed here and they were working according to a streamlined plan which had everyone smiling as they left the offices and again when they came to collect their licences. Not only did these young policemen all smile magnificently as they helped some of us less efficient with forms on our way, it took less time to get in and out than it took us to get there.
Some time ago this particular service was in a shambles and I can remember reports of corruption even about getting appointments. That isn’t happening anymore. I cannot vouch for any of the other offices in Gauteng but I do know that on two occasions – both of them huge – my faith in our country and the way things could and should be run, was restored.
I have never paid a bribe and I hope never to be in a situation where I feel there’s no other option. And with these two encounters, I know it is possible to make what could have been really tough situations (if not impossible), joyous.
Just keep looking, you will find someone who will help when they should.
PS: Following this writing, I had two more service hero encounters!
They might seem small in comparison, yet they added a sparkle and a huge smile to my day. The first was a grocery shopping trip to my local grocery store Uitkyk in Silverton Pretoria.
Frans Madula diligently at his post.
I have become accustomed to their custom of having two employees checking slips and groceries every time you purchase anything, but this time something was different. Having bought only a few items, I was surprised that the bill was more than R600, but I was distracted and didn’t complete the thought in my head. It was only when my trolley and purchases were checked by the alert Frans Madula, that my suspicions were confirmed. But for his quick eye, I would have paid double the amount my groceries cost!
It was a simple error, 22 rather than two tins of sardines were charged to my account but luckily for me, it was spotted and caught.
At a different store, Builders Express at Gift Acres, I found some swimming pool floaters at the best price I could find. When I got to the till where I was helped by a friendly employee whose nametag aptly read Queen. She pointed out that I could only get that specific special price if I owned a loyalty card.
No problem, she said, she would quickly register me. It was a tedious process, but she had no problem doing what she felt was her job.
And while people were piling into the queue behind me where my purchases were prolonging the process, two women slipped in behind two empty tills to prevent everyone’s impatience.
I didn’t notice anyone guiding this process in any way. These were simply employees who were well trained and who knew how to make the shopping process a smooth one – for everyone.
De Beer Necessities 