The annual Klein Karoo National Arts Festival was held in Oudtshoorn these past 10 days and concluded at the weekend. DIANE DE BEER highlights her best of the fest:
Festivals are the kind of places where artists have to take a giant leap and hope for the best. Quality doesn’t always hit the expected mark and plays that on the surface don’t have much to say, might work for the audience on the day as they buy into what might seem to others, much ado about nothing.
Fortunately for those of us who perhaps visit one festival too many, there are the stalwarts, the inspiring newcomers, some who are estab- lishing themselves as exceptional artists and those who always seem to come up with something extraordinary.
There were a handful of successful stories from previous festivals like Marthinus Basson’s Op Dees Aarde, Tara Notcutt’s Three Little Pigs, Wessel Pretorius and his astonishing Ont (a winner of four Fiestas), Nicola Hanekom’s Hol and Sandra Prinsloo’s Oskar en die Pienk Tannie (also with a few Fiestas in hand), Liefde, Anna (also starring Prinsloo as Anna Neethling Pohl) and more.
Hanekom has established herself as someone who thinks outside of the box and her latest innovation, Trippie, bolsters that reputation. She does more than just come up with a brilliant idea.
This latest journey is set in a bus. The audience are the passengers who are joined by two actors, Hanekom and Stian Bam. At the start of the trip, Bam is already on the bus, while Hanekom is picked up about five minutes into the journey.
On to the bus steps this eye-catching young woman with a swinging ponytail, a mini dress and a suitcase. She starts a conversation, immediately turning to the odd passenger and then settling on Bam. She flirts, draws him out, zooms in, and when she has his full attention, she cuts him down.
It’s an intriguing dance, these two strangers on a bus, actors up close and as personal as possible with the Karoo landscape as the backdrop. Not that Hanekom’s characters allow your attention to drift.
There’s a touch of Fatal Attraction with characters that remind one of an Ian McEwan novel as the mood swings and switches between the two at sharp angles. It’s a cunning script, tantalising acting and a production that’s huge fun as the audience become part of the action.
Also seated as spectators, the audience in the probing Saartjie Botha’s Balbesit, directed by Jaco Bouwer, are confronted by a cast of 24 hulking males. The playwright has always been fascinated by the game and decided to use it as a metaphor in this mammoth production.
From the start, she knew this would be a team effort with Bouwer, who is both visual and visceral in his approach. It’s an onslaught on the senses in an almost overwhelming way. With movement in almost Pina Bausch style working with the sound and the powerful physicality, as well as Braam du Toit’s haunting music and song, words are flung around between the players almost at random.
Botha trawled internet sites for opinions, mostly given anonymously, and was fascinated by their wilfulness yet inability to express these clearly. For her it is as much about the words as the game.
Balbesit is a play with and on metaphors and meaning because, as the playwright says, when you put down a ball, within five minutes there’s a game.
It’s a dense work that taps into a myriad issues and genres to explosively express and voice the things people are too scared to say.
There’s the game – constantly – but as you penetrate the layers, the issues come tumbling down at a dazzling speed.
Catch it if you can when it is being staged at Pretoria’s State Theatre for a three week season from May 21. It’s such a huge production, it’s debatable when it will be staged again.
They need to do some culling towards the end when too much information and instruction is thrown the spectator’s way and the nostalgic bookends that open and close the game detract rather than add to the play.
It’s a majestic piece of imaginative theatre even if flawed and confirms the wisdom of granting Botha a well-deserved Afrikaans Onbeperk award for innovative thinking. To get the full benefit, it’s one that demands more than one viewing.
The astounding Dorothy Masuka of Pata Pata fame, the first artist to receive an Afrikaans Onbeperk Lifetime Achievement award, was honoured with a tribute concert, Dorothy/60 Jaar, with another achiever, Karen Zoid (Kuns Onbeperk Kruispunt), as both performer and musical director.
Sharing the stage with Laurika Rauch and Zolani Mahola (Freshlyground), the three women combined forces with Masuka as they shared memories and music and paid tribute to one of the Big Mammas of African song.
From Mannetjies Roux (one of Dorothy’s favourite Afrikaans songs) to O Die Donkie as well as Masuka’s Hamba Nantsokolo, her first hit song which she shared with the audience, the music was as diverse as the artists on stage. Yet again, this was the kind of coming together that underlines the miracle and spirit of South Africa.
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house and there are rumours swirling about that the concert is going to travel. Hold thumbs, it is truly a remarkable show which deserves a much longer run. It was slick, stripped and presented with sentiment and style. It honoured the musician and her music gloriously.
Another festival regular, Hennie van Greunen, had a number of productions and leading the way was Die Leo’s, a translation of a Nicky Silver text. It deals with a dysfunctional family in a deliciously decadent fashion that has the audience screaming with laughter, and sometimes fear.
In a brilliant stroke of casting, Prinsloo and Tobie Cronjé star as the ageing parents. In Ben’s (Cronjé) case, he’s dying and lying in a hospital bed with his wife Rita (Prinsloo) in attendance. But she is obsessed with the interior of their living room which she wants to redecorate. Ben, who wants the attention rather than the distraction, is distressed with her future plans that don’t include him.
With lines like “Disdain is also a connection”, there’s not much love lost in what should have been a closely bonded couple.
Part of this happy family is daughter Lisa (Erica Wessels) and son Koert (Jacques Theron), who are suddenly confronted with their father’s imminent death.
It’s a marvellous play which can also do with a trim, especially the monologues that don’t really contribute anything new and slow down the pithily biting character of the play.
During our performance, the players also had to contend with a feathered friend in the form of an auditorium dove that flew right in front of the stage for a few minutes.
Without missing a beat, Prinsloo and Cronjé made it part of their play and underlined their supremacy as actors who have enough experience to circumvent even the occasional offbeat visitor. It was one of those magical moments enhanced by two actors who know how to grab the moment.
Watch out for this one as it is destined to travel.
Some more highlights:
• The Pretoria University Symphony Orchestra with special soloist, the teenage violinist Emmanuel Bach, was extraordinary. It is wondrous to be part of the early stages of his young career and it is unfortunate that he wasn’t given more exposure to attract better audiences. Hope- fully the orchestra will build on this spectacular partnership and bring him back to stages where he will be welcomed more warmly. It’s something that could have been rectified with better marketing.
• Described as the incubator of the festival, Baanbreek showcased work with titles as inviting as Kombuis Avonture in ’n Koekieblik (Kitchen Adventures in a Cookie Jar), Sfeer (Sphere) and Three Little Pigs. The work was diverse, experimental, some as much for children as for adults and often showcasing a creative edge that was achieved with rare simplicity.
• Playing with the theme of Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hennie van Greunen’s Wordsmith’s Theatre Company produced Droom, a musical by a young cast for a young audience. A rave club atmosphere prevailed and introduced the audience to the characters who raved and rallied among them even before the show began. Written and directed by the budding Christiaan Olwagen, he told a story that resonated with the teen audience, spotlighted young talent with Elana Afrika showcasing her acting and singing skills, and apart from a too drawn-out and repetitive ending, it rocked.
• Storytelling always wins the day and when Antoinette Kellerman takes to the stage, she gives wings to Dot Serfontein’s My Mense, a production that should travel widely. Amanda Strydom does her storytelling in song as she reflects on her past and her music with musicians who add depth to the stories.
• A musical duo of note, pianist Charl du Plessis and guitarist Jean Oosthuizen presented Latin Quarter with a programme of familiar yet innovative choices to represent the Latin and Spanish sounds. It was an intimate concert where musicianship flowed easily between the two artists who served the music rather than the performance. This is another one that should travel easily.
• Festivals are one of the few places where poetry comes alive. Hardop, produced by Kabous Meiring, gathered a group of poets and musicians including Ronelda Kampher, Loftus Marais, Toast Coetzer, Les Javan, Laurinda Hofmeyr and Schalk van der Merwe, who allowed the words to sing.
• It’s always exciting to see someone introduce a new premise that promises to be the start of some- thing innovative and lasting. Jody Abrahams and Christo Davids made magic with Titanik: Een Yslike Avontuur. They took the audience on an imaginative and playful ride with clever improvisational storytelling that entertained. Hopefully they will easily roll into a new journey which is as escapist as it is joyful.
• Marion Holm, one of the few Afrikaans comediennes, raises the standard with Holm: Ge-marion-neer. It’s about her storytelling ability and how she engages the audience with her enthusiastic, skilful performance.