Kleinemonde writer scoops top prize
Welman’s play focuses on woman with Parkinson’s disease trapped in a lift
Kleinemonde resident Madeleen Welman’s radio play, Die Vuurvliegdief, was named best produced radio play script at the 2023 Muse Awards earlier this month.
The Writer’s Guild award follows a merit award in the 2022 Radio Sonder Grense (RSG) Sanlam radio drama writing competition.
A professional medical assessment, the delivery of a chicken sandwich and an anxiolytic are all very well when you’re stuck in a lift. But what really makes a difference is someone who will stay with you and talk to you until help comes.
Being truly present is at the heart of this moving story about the accidental meeting between the doorman at a multi-storey building and an octogenarian with Parkinson’s disease on her way back to her care facility after a visit to the doctor.
She gets stuck in the lift between floors and through the partly open door, William the doorman talks to her. Like in the Bible story, several “priests” and “Levites” come and go. Like a modern-day good Samaritan, William stays with her until help comes.
Talk of the Town asked Welman to elaborate on her personal connection to the play’s theme, and about radio as a medium for storytelling.
“This was a completely new genre for me and I did not know what I was letting myself in for! I had written a travel series on Malawi for RSG years ago and thought I could do this. It is a very different kettle of fish, though. I had to teach myself to see with my ears.
“For instance: you cannot describe movement in words as in ordinary writing. Instead every movement or sound has to be described in detail in the text as sound effects. Are the footsteps you can hear on a wooden floor, a carpet, or gravel? If the footsteps come closer, do they recede again?
“And in between, there is constant dialogue. To top it all, every line of dialogue must be numbered. So if you delete or add a sentence, the numbers get scrambled.
“I was ready to throw in the towel before RSG gave a virtual master's class to the 19 finalists. It was excellent motivation and I started over; adding, deleting renumbering and tightening. Are the days of radio drama over? “For me it is! I doubt that I will write another. (On the other hand, never say never.)
“I think radio stations, such as RSG and regional stations, still have an important role to play with regard to information and entertainment and hopefully the future of the radio drama is not too bleak. It is much like stage drama: you will always find people who enjoy it and radio is the only access to drama for those who cannot visit theatres.
“RSG forwarded me the SMS
messages they had received after the broadcast. The listeners who responded ranged widely in age and there were several English messages too. This, to me, is an indication that radio drama has a place.
“The bad news is that television has had a big impact on radio: it is much easier to sit and watch a story unfold than to listen and imagine what is happening. Radio is also fleeting.
“When the story has been told, it is gone. The good news is that many of the radio dramas are available as podcasts.
Regarding the storyline, Welman said: “The drama is based on what happened to my then elderly mother who had Parkinson’s. After a visit to her doctor, she was trapped in a lift between two floors, but with the door slightly open. The security guard sat outside the door, talking to her until she was released hours later. It left a lasting impression on her and she often wondered what had become him.
“The old-age home in Sunnyside is real. (I received a message from a gentleman who lives there.) Apart from a scene where two Nigerian men carried her back to the home after she fell in the street, the conversations, characters and what happened afterwards, is pure fiction,” she said.
You can listen to the play at: https://bit.ly/RadioPlayWelman.
Welman studied journalism at the University of the North West (in those days still the University of Potchefstroom), and worked as a reporter’on Grocott s Mail. the Potch Herald and
While raising a family, she freelanced for magazines, such as Rooi Rose, interviewing Eastern Cape celebrities Andrew Buckland, Obie Oberholzer, Reza de Wet and racing driver Sarel van der Merwe. They also published some of her “lighter” short stories. A few articles on gardens appeared in Country Life.
Short stories are her forte and hers have been published in several collections, mainly those of the Woordfees (the University of Stellenbosch literary festival).
Rainfall and temperatures recorded in Port Alfred for the week of Wednesday October 18 to Tuesday October 24. (Rainfall in millimetres and temperature degrees Celsius)
● Wednesday: 0 (13°C)
● Thursday: 0 (16°C)
● Friday: 0 (17°C)
● Saturday: 4 (17°C)
● Sunday: 8 (14°C)
● Monday: 0 (11°C)
● Tuesday: 0 (16°C)
● Total rainfall: 12mm
● Seven-day mean temperature 14.85°C (Median 16°C)
● Average for October 94.75mm
● YTD 619mm
● MTD 70mm
— Rainfall and temperature measurements, recorded at 6am in Forest Downs, Port Alfred by Emil Jurgensen.