Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Rave reviews and rare skills
Inthe
THERE are plays that get everyone talking and create a frenzy of excitement. This happened when Samsa-masjien premiered at the Absa Klein Karoo National Arts Festival ( KKNK) last year. Directed and designed by Jaco Bouwer, it received rave reviews and awards for best actor and director and the Herrie prize for “mind-shifting” work. It is at the Baxter’s Flipside from January 16-31.
The play was conceptualised by Bouwer and Stellenbosch academic and writer Willem Anker.
They’ve used Franz Kafka’s story The Metamorphosis as a starting point.
“It’s not an adaption of Metamorphosis,” said Bouwer. “It’s using Kafka’s Metamorphosis as a starting point. There’s reference to it, but it’s a new piece.”
In Metamorphosis Gregor metamorphoses into an insect – much to the horror of his middle-class family – particularly the daughter, Grete, whose plans of upward mobility are scuppered by her brother’s transformation.
In Samsa-masjien, the father, Gregor Sr (played by Gerben Kamper) becomes the insect.
His wife Josephine ( Antoinette Kellerman) dutifully looks after her husband, who is a retired biology teacher and principal and is suffering from dementia. Gregor Jr died in the Angolan War.
Gregor Sr and Josephine have moved in with Grete (Ilana Cilliers) and her husband Tjaart ( Ludwig Binge) – a yuppie couple living in a Sandton-type suburb.
“It’s a contemporary setting in South Africa. It’s referencing a capitalist, artificial world. The artificiality – yuppieness – what you wear; how you dress – all of that.”
Grete is an advertising copywriter. Tjaart is a psychologist. Grete goes into therapy to deal with the madness of her father and much of the backstory – like Gregor Jr dying in Angola – comes through her talking to the therapist, explains Bouwer.
When Gregor tranforms, we are not sure if it’s in his mind that he becomes an insect or if he really does change, says Bouwer.
“He becomes insect/ old/ more childlike. It’s almost a regression but in another sense by becoming more childlike – he becomes more human. So on one hand he is becoming less human but on the other hand, it’s about letting go – of society – and about embracing the body – the fluids, etc. It’s going back to being a child. That’s important to me as a theme.”
As Gregor Sr metamorphoses, there’s an unravelling of language. It’s like regressing to sounds and clicks and rhythms – almost becoming a baby and pre-verbal. “What would it mean to go back to un-learn language – to go back to baba taal ( baby speech)?” asks Bouwer.
Design is core to the piece as the narrative pivots around upstairs/ downstairs. The first act takes place upstairs in the pristine house. As Gregor becomes an insect, he moves downstairs into the cellar. “It’s moist, dirty and damp; a basement. The verticality of a house is important. Visually it’s the rational versus the irrational.”
Pierre-Henri Wicomb composed a soundscape to enhance the sounds of the house – the pinging of the microwave, the blender. Gregor Sr descends into the dank basement and builds a noise machine and the noise is juxtaposed against the chit chat upstairs by Grete and her husband.
“Its intellectual, but I don’t want to scare people with all these intellectual levels – there’s a lot of human interaction to it. On another level, it’s just about a family and a father becoming old and demented and what happens to them. I would call it a dark comedy. There are macabre moments – with William Anker humour.”
It is performed in Afrikaans but the design – visual and aural – and the physicality of the piece is bound to fill in the gaps for non-Afrikaans speakers. Not suitable for under 16s.
● Tickets are R110 from Computicket 0861 915 8000 or www.computicket.com