If you create a cocktail with director Marthinus Basson and author Marlene van Niekerk as the main ingredients, it’s easy to predict that the result will be explosive.
That’s exactly what happens with their operatic musical theatre production Die Kortstondige Raklewe van Anastasia W. Not only is the text extremely dense and the dialogue almost damagingly destructive in its onslaught, Basson’s extravagant staging enhances Van Niekerk’s almost anarchic telling of her particularly violent story.
And violence is exactly the thing they want to expose and uncover, to the point of making your flesh crawl.
“Enough” is Van Niekerk’s war cry as she tears into a society that seems to accept the state of a nation where killing children is almost a sport. She blasts you with statistics and Basson never allows you to forget this message as they declare war against what they perceive as total apathy as people sit back overwhelmed by what is happening around them.
Speaking in a debate about translation of texts, Basson commented on the fact that Van Niekerk wrote in a particular week about her anger, but because of a lack of funds, they couldn’t update the text or allow for rehearsals of an adapted text.
This would capture an exact moment in time, which means that the piece that was performed at Aardklop in September, not long after the World Cup, comments on a country in trouble spending money in sometimes shameless fashion while the horror of violence on especially children isn’t addressed.
Yet time also worked in their favour, with the KKNK run producing a much more rounded production with the actors more comfortably invested in their characters and the music a more integrated component.
The run at the HB Thom this week should be even better as the show settles into the space with the multimedia production finally rising to its full potential.
The text is a tough one, not only in its message, but also in the execution.
Van Niekerk is a brilliant writer, but she comes at you with a barrage of words, context, literary allusions and seemingly foreign sounds.
You have to have your wits about you and to get to grips with the words – it is helpful to get hold of a text before the time so that there’s some familiarity.
Composer Braam du Toit’s hauntingly beautiful music executed by the extraordinary Mr Cat & The Jackal as well as the acting ensemble (Eben Genis, Nicole Holm, Marlo Minnaar and Dean Balie) add to the richness of the experience and give respite, or further gnaw at the emotions.
It is not an easy show to watch and many left the auditorium because they simply couldn’t weather the storm, but in many different ways, if you have the stomach, it blows you away.
It is relentless in its message and its tone. And if I could wish for anything different, it would be that Van Niekerk’s anguish about violence takes me on a journey of some kind.
Lara Foot’s dynamic Tshepang, while extraordinarily harrowing, gave insight into a community and its circumstances, forcing the country to face its own role in the tragedy. With Die Kortstondige Raklewe van Anastasia W, it is as if Van Niekerk wanted to walk you through her anger. She opens a door, but then doesn’t take the next step.
l Die Kortstondige Raklewe van Anastasia W is playing at the HB Thom Theatre in Stellenbosch this week.