Theatre community mourns Peggy Calata
A PROLIFIC proponent of the performing arts and a vociferous member of one of South Africa’s most well-known “struggle” families, Peggy Calata has died at the age of 62 in Port Elizabeth.
Calata, the granddaughter of Rivonia Triallist the Rev James Calata, and the sister of Cradock Four member Fort Calata, spent the last 15 years of her working career at the Port Elizabeth Opera House.
She started there in 2002 and went on to serve in a number of different capacities.
Calata last served the organisation as its education officer.
She died in her home near the Opera House in Central, after a short illness. She is survived by her two adult sons.
Her death was announced with a brief notice placed on the Opera House’s website on Friday.
“It is with great sadness to announce the passing of our dear friend and colleague Ms Peggy Calata, “read the notice, which was attributed to the board and staff of the institution.
“Peggy has been with the PE Opera House since 2002 beginning as an audience developer. She has served the arts community with grace and passion during her 15-year tenure at the institution,” the notice said.
Through her work in the performing arts arena and, more so, due to her long-standing political and anti-apartheid struggle connections, Calata – through newspaper coverage – built up a substantial public profile over the past decade – and longer.
In 2005, in her capacity as public relations manager for the Opera House, she served as a judge for The Herald’s annual Citizen of the Year Award.
She was also heavily involved in The Swallows Foundation which assisted local artists, some of whom gained international exposure through that organisation.
Most notable were reports around Calata’s meeting with Nelson Mandela, whom she interviewed for a book she was authoring about her grandfather; and the litigation efforts the relatives of the Cradock Four put into securing justice in 2008 – more than two decades after their deaths.
Fort Calata, along with Matthew Goniwe, Sicelo Mhlauli and Sparrow Mkhonto were killed by security forces in 1985.
She later also co-edited a book documenting the lives of ordinary Eastern Cape women with English actress Val McLane. Equally notable reports were Calata’s public refusals to forgive apartheid-era policemen and specifically those involved in atrocities involving her family members.
Commenting on the 2014 failed parole bid by notorious apartheid hit-squad leader Eugene de Kock, an ecstatic Calata warned that families of those affected by De Kock’s crimes would take revenge, and that he would not live long on the outside.
“He should be glad his parole was denied, because he would be killed,” she said at the time.
In March last year, Calata rejoiced in the suicide of former Port Elizabeth security policeman, Gerhard Lotz, who had admitted his role in the deaths of the Cradock Four during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings.
Commenting at the time that she was happy “Lotz’s sins had caught up with him”, Calata was quoted as saying: “I don’t even want to know why he killed himself, but he did the right thing. It was long overdue.
“At least he took his own life unlike them [Cradock Four]. I have to celebrate this good news. We are told to forgive, but I have not forgiven.”
Public relations and marketing manager for the Opera House, Cingiwe Skosana, hailed Calata.
“She was of great service to the arts and to the Opera House. She was much more than a colleague to us, and more a mother figure,” she said.
Opera House general manager Monde Ngonyama said yesterday Calata’s death was very sad.
Ngonyama said a memorial service would be held at 6pm at the Opera House on Wednesday.
He said she would be laid to rest in her hometown, Cradock, on Saturday.