A mafficking of Bosman

GIFTED ACTORS: Mathew Lewis and Andrew Laubscher bring Herman Charles Bosmans loveable, naive characters to life in Mafeking Road.

MAFEKING ROAD. Directed by Tara Notcutt, with Andrew Laubscher and Mathew Lewis. At the Kalk Bay Theatre until September 8. TYRONE AUGUST reviews.

OOM Schalk Lourens would have puffed on his pipe contentedly if he had seen Mafeking Road, an imaginative retelling on stage of some of his stories. As the master storyteller himself once noted: “It is not the story that counts. What matters is the way you tell it.”.

Director Tara Notcutt and performers Andrew Laubscher and Mathew Lewis have certainly created a fascinating rendition of Herman Charles Bosman’s tales.

Not only do they dispense with conventional narrative techniques, but they also discard all the traditional theatrical devices.

There are no props of any kind; no costume changes or lighting to signal shifts in scenes or moods.

Just two exquisitely talented performers, equipped with an array of facial expressions and body movements. While remaining faithful to the original period and location of Bosman’s stories, Mafeking Road invigorates them with new life.

It is based on four stories – most of them located in the Groot Marico District of what was then known as the Western Transvaal – woven together with a smattering of mischievous banter between Laubscher and Lewis.

Romance features prominently in two of them. In The Love Potion, we get to meet the shy young policeman, Gideon van der Merwe, and his love interest, Lettie Cordier, the daughter of a garrulous farmer.

In Willem Prinsloo’s Peach Brandy, Oom Schalk recounts how he competed with Fritz Pretorius for the affections of the seemingly innocent Grieta Prinsloo at a party given by her father to welcome her back from a finishing school.

While Bosman’s impish sense of humour is still the focal point of In the Withaak’s Shade (this time it revolves around how to recognise different kinds of leopards by the number of spots they have), it features a sad twist in the tale.

Bosman ventures out of the Groot Marico District in A Bekkersdal Marathon, which is written later than his Oom Schalk stories. Nevertheless, it retains his inimitable sense of humour and instantly recognisable host of loveable yet sometimes naive characters.

All the stories in Mafeking Road are vividly brought to life by Laubscher and Lewis, but A Bekkersdal Marathon even more so. The duo effortlessly move back and forth from this story several times during the one-hour performance.

They are clearly gifted performers. Laubscher’s characterisations are a marvel to behold, while Lewis, on the other hand, zealously dictates the pace of the performance with the sheer force of his energy and personality.

With such formidable talents, it is difficult to detect Notcutt’s guiding hand as director.

Apart from structuring the narrative shape of the performance, her main role was probably to restrain their exuberance (presumably no small feat).

No wonder Mafeking Road won the Standard Bank Silver Ovation Award for Physical Theatre last year. It is a whirl of energy from beginning to end.

However, the antics on stage no doubt conceal a lot of hard work that went into conceptualising it by the director and the two performers.

The hostile reception by some traditional Bosman fans is to be expected. Mafeking Road is an audacious venture: it is a bold attempt to make his work appeal to new (and younger) audiences. It even features bits of Henry Mancini’s The Pink Panther theme and Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely.

At no stage, though, does Mafeking Road sacrifice substance for a new style. It retains all the elements that make Bosman’s writing so unique: the singular ability to tell a good yarn.

l To book, see www.kbt.co.za