South African history: Tannie Evita’s version
IT WAS appropriate to be watching Tannie Evita on the same day the news was abuzz with President Jacob Zuma rejecting a secret ballot for the vote of no confidence in him at Parliament.
In her inimitable way, she took more than a dig at the beleaguered president, much in the same manner she has at anyone and anything in the almost 40 years since she has been a former apartheid ambassador in the homeland of Bapetikosweti.
These days, Tannie Evita, slimmed down a little, and gracefully ageing in her own way, is in the kitchens of Luthuli House where she cooks for reconciliation.
She gives the audience her own version of history, from the arrival of a small Dutch ship called the Drommedaris to the coronation of a former political prisoner called Madiba.
Tannie Evita’s on a unique Great Trek as she follows the journey of the Kaktus of Separate Development (Kaktaceae Apartica) from its arrival in 1652 to its reinvention in 1994 – right up to the current state of events.
In the first half, she’s in front of the curtain drapes on the edge of the stage, with a pair of stepladders as she waits for the late delivery of the set which is coming from the ANC, of which she’s a card-carrying member.
But her membership doesn’t stop her from frequent barbs at former president Thabo Mbeki and the incumbent.
From a bag she pulls a host of visual aids – which boost her descriptions of the politically-wired past.
It’s doubtless the older members of the audience who’ll find the most traction in Tannie Evita’s reminiscences about the euphoric days of our fledgling democracy to the ever-absent rule of Mbeki leading up to the rot and corruption that have set in.
Making clever use of the autobiographies of Madiba, Mbeki and the slim biography of Zuma which she waves around then stacks on one of her stepladders, she refers to the millions of voyager miles of Mbeki; the wondrous use of Madiba’s book as a cultural weapon; and the fact that we should all Google the Weimar Republic in finding out why the populace may just vote Malema in – much in the same way Germans voted in Hitler in pre-war Germany.
The second half is livelier as the set she’s talking about finally arrives – a somewhat plush office where we get a further lesson on how history has shaped us and where we are today.
Since the early days of Pieter-Dirk Uys’s alter ego, Tannie Evita has always reminded us where we come from, so that we can celebrate where we are going. But she comes to the realisation that while we are all now free to celebrate our roots, our history and our culture, white South Africans are still rootless.
Tannie Evita says the Afrikaner’s official history was probably made up behind a desk in Pretoria as propaganda, posing the question: what was fake news and how many details were alternative facts?
For example, she asks, did Jan van Riebeeck bring civilisation to South Africa in 1652? Or was he just a Dutch convict who came to steal chickens from the Bushmen? Why did 127 branches of the Great Trek start in Cape Town on the same afternoon? Was the Battle of Blood River just that? Or was it a braaivleis of reconciliation? Does the Queen of England still wear stolen goods glittering in her crown?
And, she questions, why does President Donald Trump keep sending tweets asking for a personal meeting with Nelson Mandela?
It seems the problems of the past and the hopes for the future all seem to be in the hands of Tannie Evita, who now proves there is freedom of speech in Luthuli House. But, as she points out, it is just sometimes after speech that freedom goes.
There were laughs aplenty, and with good reason, as Tannie Evita got in both off-the-cuff and scripted gems but, underlying much of the twohour dialogue was a seriousness that seems to have increased as the tannie matures.
But despite uncertain times and the extreme fragility of democracy, there is a good message: if we all pitch in and stop moaning and look at life in this rainbow nation more positively, alles sal regkom.
Evita and Kaktus of Separate Development is on at Pieter Toerien’s Theatre on the Bay until July 1. Pieter-Dirk Uys will thereafter present The Echo of a Noise at the same venue from July 5 to 15. Book at Computicket