Shaleen Surtie Richards in Shirley Valentyn.

SHIRLEY VALENTYN. Directed by Hennie van Greunen, with Shaleen Surtie-Richards. At the Baxter Theatre until Saturday. TYRONE AUGUST reviews.

THE smell of curry hangs thick in the air as you enter the kitchen. The cook moves around leisurely as she prepares the evening meal. But it is soon clear that this is no ordinary cook, and that this is no ordinary kitchen. In-between stirring the dish simmering on the stove, the cook treats herself to a glass of white wine every so often. And the walls of the kitchen are, in fact, her closest confidant, which she affectionately calls Muurtjie.

This particular cook is Shirley Valentyn (Surtie-Richards): a woman with a huge appetite for life, a shrewd intelligence and a cheeky sense of humour. It is clear that she wants more from life than standing in front of a stove every day. “Somewhere along the road,” she laments, “Shirley became this woman.”

She feels crushed by the weight of the daily demands of her nitpicking husband, Johnnie. Their children – the wayward son, Brian, and the self-absorbed daughter, Milandra – only add to her burden.

More than once, Shirley refers to her unused life (“ongebruikte lewe”). But she seems powerless to change the empty routine into which it has fallen.

“How the hell do you begin again at 50?” she asks in despair.

Despite being in a loveless marriage, she does not place all the blame on Johnnie (nor on men in general). She recognises that he also stopped growing and living to his full potential. But about one thing she is clear: she is not prepared to carry on in the same way as before.

Yet there appears to be no way out of her desperate situation. Until, that is, her recently divorced friend Jane generously gives her a ticket to accompany her to Greece on a two-week holiday.

Shirley wistfully takes the ticket, but at first does not seriously think of going and leaving the hapless Johnnie to fend for himself. But when he rages ungratefully one night at the meal he is offered, she promptly changes her mind.

She then quietly makes plans to go to Greece (and, even then, considerately prepares her husband’s meals and clothes in advance for the entire period she will be away).

Her life is never the same afterwards. “I am in love with the idea that I can live,” she tells herself in Greece.

Shirley’s story, then, is not that of a bored housewife looking for a passing thrill. It is about an individual’s quest to regain her identity and her sense of self.

It is also about an individual’s determination to explore more fully the possibilities of life.

The result may not always be what you wish. As the bartender Costa tells her in Greece: “Dreams are never in places where we expect them to be.” But even in itself, the mere pursuit of a more fulfilling life can be the source of much joy and gratification. That is Shirley’s joyous and self-affirming discovery.

It was true for the Liverpool woman in Willy Russell’s original play, Shirley Valentine, written almost three decades ago. It is as true for the Cape Flats woman today in director Hennie van Greunen’s translated – and brilliantly localised – version.

Shirley Valentyn is a captivating work. After inhabiting the role for so many years, Surtie-Richards’s performance is utterly compelling. She is poignant as a woman trapped in a loveless marriage; she is exhilarating as a woman who relishes life and seizes its opportunities.

While there are fleeting reminders of Surtie-Richards’s character Nenna from the Egoli television series, these are absent in the range of other characters she plays (including her pretentious school friend Marjorie, her nosy neighbour Gillian and the “gender terrorist” Jane).

Van Greunen’s version of the play is far more than a translation: it successfully transports Shirley Valentine to another time and place. While it retains the essence of Russell’s play, it virtually creates an entirely new character in Shirley Valentyn.

She is a recognisable, flesh-and-blood character (even though, at times, skirting dangerously close to the stereotype of an earthy Cape Flats woman). Kosie Smit’s stage design is quite basic, but effectively depicts two very different environments, ably assisted by some subtle lighting.

Shirley Valentyn is an outstanding production, both in its conceptualisation and execution.

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