Afrikaans festivals have become the lifeblood of Afrikaans theatre. If you don’t catch productions there, you’re not going to have much joy, especially in Gauteng. The Cape seems to fare better on this score and hopefully more of the better productions will start travelling across the country and changing these dynamics.

This year’s Klein Karoo National Arts Festival (KKNK, from March 31 to April 7 in Oudtshoorn) has a particularly strong theatrical component, starting with Nicola Hanekom completing her trilogy, (which began with Bethesda and Lot) with Babbel.

She has gathered a band of brothers, including musician/composer Braam du Toit and a cast starring Tinarie van Wyk, Brendon Daniels, Stian Bam, Neels van Jaarsveld and more, who have all worked with the exciting director before (see the story alongside).

Those who like strong and challenging theatre will rate their dramatic festival fare by the number of Marthinus Basson productions. This year he returns with the errant Malan Steyn, a playwright who absconded for a few years and is back with Bos, which tells the story of 10 teenagers under the guidance of a paramilitary instructor at a survival camp. How do they cope with peer pressure and pests, ghosts and hormones, and everything that could go wrong? Bam is the leader of the pack and with Basson blasting through this type of scenario, it should be explosive.

Die Vrou Vantevore is one of Basson’s translations of a sharply selected international play. In this instance he picked the German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig, who explains that the play was written when thinking fearfully about what would happen if someone from your past turned up and recalled some unfortunate tale. A young woman knocks on a door and reminds the man of a promise of fidelity he made 24 years earlier.

This is vintage Basson territory with a cast boasting Brümilda van Rensburg, Stian Bam (obviously a Basson favourite), Erica Wessels, Wilhelm van der Walt and Greta Pietersen.

On a gentler note, Rachelle Greef, who wrote the solo-driven Die Naaimasjien starring Sandra Prinsloo, follows with Buitepos, directed by Fred Abrahams. She shifts the focus from an ageing woman to that of a man walking through a dry riverbed, with only his thoughts and the stones around him as company.

Playwright Chris Voster (of 7de Laan fame) also has a few fingers in KKNK pies. For the second year in a row, he assists comedian Marion Holm with her new show titled Holmakiesie. It is turning into what could grow into a great partnership.

Vorster also stages Buurtwag, which premiered at Aardklop, and while the name (Neighbourhood Watch) doesn’t point to hilarity, that’s what ensues. It’s light festival fare.

Playwright Charles J Fourie is another one who has found his way back to Afrikaans festivals with last year’s successful Agterplaas.

Based loosely on Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Die Bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant, he offers Die Soet Trane van Petrus Pansegrouw, a tongue-in-cheek comedy about the middle-aged Petrus, who is puzzled by the whole ageing-and-affairs thing – until he finds himself involved with an attractive young actress.

It’s fantastic to welcome Janice Honeyman back with some serious theatre. She’s directing a translated Sam Shepard play (the Pulitzer prize-winning Buried Child), Doodsnikke, starring Anna-Mart van der Merwe, Gys de Villiers, Oscar Petersen, Travis Snyders and Ivan Abrahams. It’s balanced on a knife edge between humour and horror and deals with family dysfunction.

On a lighter note, Hennie van Greunen has picked well with his latest translation, that of Educating Rita, cunningly titled Griet kry Geleerdheid, starring Lulu Botha and Chris van Niekerk, who aim to bring this warm and witty story to life. Like his Shirley Valentine transformation, this should be another one that grabs both heads and hearts.

There’s a return of Lizz Meiring and André Stoltz in Kopstukke but it’s almost a decade after they first performed this macabre Jean Goosen piece, which has you giggling at the horror of a couple who are confined to their beds because of a car accident.

The Pink Couch, who won many hearts last year with the wondrous Miskien, return with a physical theatre approach to Herman Charles Bosman’s Mafeking Road, directed by Tara Louise Notcutt, who has a remarkable ability to pick them and to create theatre that both informs and entertains. She and her team are a great acquisition for local festivals.

Playwright Saartjie Botha pays tribute to Afrikaans storyteller Abraham H de Vries with Smelt, directed by the promising Wolfie Britz, starring Gerben Kamper, and producer/ director Albert Maritz brings the much-lauded Mooi Maria, with award-winning performances from Anthea Thompson and Isadora Verwey, as well as PG du Plessis’s comedy classic ’n Seder Val in Waterkloof with another star cast.

Other winning productions that have played at Aardklop, for example, include Jaco Bouwer’s Rooiland. This searing piece about prison gangs, written by Tertius Kapp, showcases brilliant performances by Brendon Daniels, Charlton George, Leon Kruger and Wilhelm van der Walt.

There’s also a reworking of Op-en-top, which previously played in Grahamstown, directed by Andrew Buckland and created and performed by Richard Antrobus and Tristan Jacobs in typical Buckland style.

Lizz Meiring features with pianist Rocco de Villiers in Speel, taking a step back in time as Hermoine who works in a sanatorium in London, with World War I fresh in everyone’s minds. Ou Blare, starring Elsabé Daneel, Susanne Beyers (Erfdeel) and Joannie Combrink, is about friends reuniting with a great deal of laughter but also their share sadness and anger.

This year’s festival artists are the magnificent Handspring Puppet Company, who have captured world headlines with War Horse. This, and some of their other spectacular work, will be on a show and, like everything on this year’s stages, grab the imagination.

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