A Fork in the Road Read online

  ‘Talking about shit?’

  ‘Yes. Talking about shit.’

  This went on – this near-endless ranting about shit – in circles and spirals and Miró-like squiggles – until I actually dropped off into an unsound sleep. This was the last straw.

  ‘Do you realise that you actually fell asleep while I was talking?’ he asked. ‘I must say this is an experience that is quite new to me. I had thought for years now that you were an intelligent young man, that you had a lot of promise, that you were not untalented as a writer, that you were at least interested in what I could teach you. Now, here, tonight, I find that you – that you actually—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘But I don’t think Godot will ever come.’

  He found this singularly unfunny. Two days later he left – for Germany, as far as I can remember; and for the middle-aged lady he was pursuing across the face of Europe.

  I felt guilty for a long time. Guilt feelings came very readily to me in those days.

  After our return to South Africa we tried a few times to make up, but it was all very formal, like a creaky amateur show. I had lost a treasured friend. But I had gained Godot.

  During the years that followed, Paris remained, like London, New York, Edinburgh, Adelaide, a Mecca for theatre. No inventory is called for here, only the briefest mention of some productions that shifted my perception of theatre or added something to the way I experience myself in the world. There was a Lear in this class that I saw in 1995, with Philippe Morier-Genoud, in the Odéon, played at a dizzying tempo on an almost bare stage featuring an elliptical disk that suggested the curve of the globe suspended in open space; and because of the way in which the spectator was carried along by a kind of cosmic force against which they were helpless, it was breathtaking. There was one other Lear I can compare with this one: it was offered in the Maynardville open-air theatre in Cape Town, featuring the great Afrikaans actor Johann Nel, and during his ranting in the storm in Act Two a real thunderstorm broke out which truly reduced us all to poor naked wretches.

  Where pure spectacle is concerned, I can think of few other productions that made such a total onslaught on my senses as Peter Brook’s Timon of Athens in a half-demolished old theatre in the north of Paris. In which even the state of the building was incorporated into the ‘language’ of the play. Another was Jean Genet’s Les Paravents (The Screens) in the Odéon. And undoubtedly also Jean-Louis Barrault’s Rabelais in which all the senses were bombarded in a dense ‘language of the stage’ in which words were only one dimension.

  At Rhodes University, where I taught for nearly thirty years from 1961, a fair deal of my time was spent in the Drama Department, where I could profit from the presence of talented and enthusiastic students to become more extensively involved in theatrical practice. Apart from mounting some productions, the most enjoyable being Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba, it also provided an opportunity to try out some of my own plays on the stage before they reached a more final form.

  The text that benefited most obviously from this experience was Elders Mooiweer en Warm (Elsewhere Fine and Warm) which was subsequently staged, in English, in Namibia, and in due course also in Bulgaria and some other Central European countries. Written in 1965, it was the first of my plays to be inspired by the political situation in South Africa, though on the surface there was nothing overtly political. It was based on the experience of a friend at Rhodes University, Terrence Beard, who had been placed under banning orders following his involvement in an investigation of a massive campaign of torture and persecution of black communities in the Eastern Cape and Transkei following the murder of a white family at the Bashee Bridge. My friend’s banning order included the standard stipulation that, except during lectures, he could not be in the company of more than one person at a time.

  Some colleagues decided to show their solidarity by inviting him to a party where he had to sit in the kitchen while everybody else gathered in the lounge: from there, one at a time, they would visit the kitchen to enjoy a glass of wine and have a chat with Terrence. In the course of the evening the mere presence of ‘the man in the kitchen’ cast a pall over all the assembled guests, leading to unpredictable reactions ranging from gloom to excessive hilarity and festivity. People were inspired to share confidences about very private affairs, secret grievances and hidden fears. It was like the machinations of a small Truth and Reconciliation Commission many years before such an enterprise had ever been dreamed up. In the play, which undeniably had some echoes of both Sartre’s Huis Clos and Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a group of decadent partygoers are cut off from the outside world after an outbreak of the plague in the city; all they can do to while away the time is to devise endless theme parties, which under the guidance of an evil old master of ceremonies degenerate into an inquisition to dredge up the most hidden secrets of all the guests.

  I had real problems with the ending. There seemed to be too many loose threads dangling. During rehearsals at Rhodes with the students, and subsequently in a production with the Performing Arts Council of the Orange Free State (PACOFS) I made cuts and changes, but nothing really seemed to work. Then in a most unexpected turn, which could only have happened in the theatre, a solution presented itself. At a performance in the Oppenheimer Theatre in the mining town of Welkom, the stage manager, the worse for wear after several stiff drinks during the interval, fell asleep in the wings. When he woke up, confused and bewildered, he took one look at the actors on the stage, thought it was the last scene of the final act, and brought down the curtain – almost ten minutes before the end.

  The performance got a standing ovation, and afterwards Truida Louw, a grande dame of the theatre, who happened to have seen the play before, enthusiastically congratulated me on the judicious and most effective cut. In subsequent performances I stuck to this ending.

  But the performance itself nearly ended in tragedy: the stage manager, convinced that he had fucked up the show, clambered up to the catwalk high above the stage and attempted to commit suicide by jumping. It took at least half an hour to calm him down. By then he was so thoroughly drunk that he was out of action during the entire process of striking the set.

  There was another ‘double performance’ prompted by Elsewhere Fine and Warm, illustrating just how unpredictable and far-reaching the effects of theatre can be. During the year I spent in Paris in 1968 a young woman, a poet and journalist living in Pretoria, started corresponding with me; we met after my return and I discovered that she had a provocative and creative mind, a character with many facets and tantalising darknesses, and that she was unusually beautiful. Her name was Lise. I was unattached at the time, but Lise was having affairs, simultaneously, with two of my best friends in Johannesburg and it seemed to me wise to keep out of it – all the more so as she soon turned to me as a father confessor. The situation was complicated even further when both my friends, each unaware of the other, began to confide in me about their involvement with Lise. For months I toyed with the idea of persuading all three of them to write their accounts of the story, and contributing my own version of it to what might become a most entertaining novel. But for obvious reasons I refrained. And then everything changed. The reason was Elsewhere Fine and Warm.

  In France, I’d seen from close up what a mess can result from a clash between different levels of reality. It happened during the summer festival in Carpentras where I attended a particularly dramatic performance of Carmen. Throughout the production there had been a peculiar electricity in the love scenes between Carmen and Don José. Then, after the last curtain, as the actors took their final bow, a young man came rushing from the raked floor of the outdoor arena, bellowing like a bull just escaped from the ring, took the stairs up to the stage three or four at a time, and tackled the handsome Don José to the floor. It transpired later that he was the real-life husband of the soprano who sang Carmen. Actors and audience all joined in the fray, until someone, presumably the stage manager, had the pre
sence of mind to switch off all the lights and prevent a riot.

  Towards September of 1969 I was working on a student production of my play at Rhodes University. There was a letter from Lise to say that she was planning to visit a friend in the Eastern Cape and wondered whether she could look me up. By all means, I responded. She would come in time for the final dress rehearsal on the Friday night, followed by the opening on Saturday. I offered her the small spare room in my flat.

  Just before she arrived I decided that the spare room might be too cramped, so I prepared my own bedroom for her and transferred my belongings to the spare room. The dress rehearsal was a great success. Afterwards Lise and I retired to my flat, had a nightcap, and then she happily settled into the big double bed in my bedroom while I prepared to make myself as comfortable as possible on the narrow single bed in the spare room. But before I could bed down I heard a knock on the front door. There, when I opened, stood my good friend Francois Swart, actor and director of the Performing Arts Council of the Transvaal (PACT), who had decided to drive all the way down from Pretoria to surprise me and attend my opening night.

  Excitement all round. But what about the sleeping arrangements? There really was only one solution I could think of. I tiptoed upstairs to my bedroom. There was still a chink of light under the door. Lise opened. She was clutching only a small towel against her, and looking even more irresistible than usual. I gulped, fixed my eyes on her dimpled kneecaps, and explained about Francois. More generously than I had ever expected, she agreed to my proposed solution. And so Francois was put up in the small spare room downstairs while I moved in with Lise.

  Truly, the theatre has its own kind of magic.

  For a full year I had attended every possible performance, including the unrehearsed and spontaneous happenings in the Sorbonne, in the Odéon and in the streets during the mind-blowing student uprising in the month of May, 1968. Now, knowing about my long-standing passion for Camus, PACT had asked me to translate Les Justes into Afrikaans, under the rather unfortunate title of Die Terroriste, which betrayed the playwright’s whole purpose. I had barely delivered the text when there was a telephone call from Pretoria. They needed to see me. Personally. And urgently. I was staying with my parents in Potchefstroom at the time, less than two hours away, while my resumption of lecturing at Rhodes was still being finalised. That same afternoon I was in Pretoria.

  What transpired at that meeting with Francois, his colleague Mannie Manim, and the head of PACT, Eghard van der Hoven, left me shaking. The director contracted for the production of the Camus play, I learned, had pulled out; rehearsals were scheduled to start within a few weeks. Francois was already involved with another project, and there was no one else at PACT available to take over. Would I be prepared to step in? They knew they were taking a chance. I had no professional experience. All I could offer, apart from some student productions, was a long-standing infatuation with Camus, and boundless enthusiasm. And, of course, enough chutzpah to accept.

  How could I possibly turn it down? The theatre had become a passion to me. I was aware of the enormity of the risk. But I also knew I could rely on Francois as a safety net, and on the cast. At that time the PACT ensemble was quite simply the best group of actors in South Africa.

  Within days I had to wind up everything else I was involved with at the time, and move to Pretoria. Lise had found lodgings for me in the converted garage of a formidable old lady whose main claim to fame was that she had published more letters in newspapers than anybody else in the country. In me she recognised a kindred soul, which meant that I was hauled in for endless discussions on literature, particularly on some of the Afrikaans doggerel perpetrated by would-be poets from the early years of the century. She watched over my life like a trained falcon. Keeping journalists at bay was her speciality. ‘Don’t you have any compassion with the man?’ I once heard her scold a newspaperman who had dared to telephone too early in the morning. ‘He is only fear and blood, you know.’ This line of existentialist truth made even more sense in Afrikaans, since vlees en bloed sounds suspiciously similar to her vrees en bloed.

  Before embarking on the four weeks of rehearsals I consulted a professor of drama in Potchefstroom for some practical tips. The sum total of his informed advice was, ‘There is only one way of ensuring that you are in total control of the actors, and that is to throw a tantrum at the very first rehearsal.’ I found an excuse to leave very early.

  Those four weeks of working with a group of truly professional artists turned out to be pure bliss. Francois provided never-ending stimulation and inspiration. On stage, backstage, in front of the stage, in everything he did he seemed constantly to reinvent a play and redefine the theatre. His sense of humour was incomparable. I shall always remember him being cornered at a party by several well-meaning middle-aged ladies who eagerly wanted to know what he ‘really’ did for a living when he was not on stage. His reply could wither the blossoms in spring: ‘Madam, I’m an artificial inseminator of cows.’

  But the daily immersion in rehearsals was the greatest revelation. To see the play take shape from day to day was like watching a sheet of pure white photographic paper in a basin of developer rapidly and miraculously transform itself into a picture of exquisite definition and rare beauty. There was only one explosion, right towards the end, when I invited Francois to attend a rehearsal and give his comments. The only actor in the cast reputed far and wide to be ‘difficult’ reacted adversely to some of the notes. ‘If I am on the wrong track as Francois said, then you’re the only one to blame!’ he stormed after Francois had left. ‘How can I have any confidence in you again? You’re a bloody amateur!’ Francois had to be summoned back. A master of diplomacy after years in the theatre, he managed to resolve everything. At the end of the day’s rehearsals the actor generously came to thank me for my ‘patience’. I assured him that I had in fact been terrified and that at heart I really was only an amateur. From that moment our collaboration was warm and trusting.

  And yet our rehearsals caused an incredible rumpus in the press. It turned out that my appointment had not been approved by the board and by the administrator of Transvaal, a notorious politician from the extreme right. Of decisive importance was the fact that the appointment was now being opposed by the most powerful member of the board, Professor Geoff Cronjé, a sociologist who had been one of the key theoreticians of apartheid and who had turned to drama mainly because it was a position from which he could wield inordinate power in cultural matters.

  So this sociologist/politician-turned-drama-expert protested against my involvement and insisted that Francois take over. Given the political overtones of the controversy it came as no surprise that it was front-page news for weeks. I had returned from France wearing my hair rather long, bedecking myself with chains, and professing my support for the French students rioting against de Gaulle – all of which was interpreted as signs, either of the Antichrist or of communism, which was worse. It was during this time that I wrote a rather audacious letter to the prime minister, John Vorster, to remind him that his own strong-arm repression of protesting students in Cape Town was reminiscent of de Gaulle, and that very soon after the 1968 riots de Gaulle had to vacate his seat of power. I ended the letter by expressing the wish that the prime minister’s conscience would not stand in the way of a good night’s sleep. Somewhat to my surprise His Excellency wrote back to say that my letter, coming from a pink liberalist, had not surprised him; and to wish me, in my turn, ‘a good night’s rest, in spite of the curlers in your hair.’ Such was the stuff that prime ministers were made of.

  The administrator ordered a Commission of Inquiry. Francois threatened to resign as artistic director of PACT. There were indications that Mannie would join him, and rumours that even the director, Eghard van der Hoven, might resign. Geoff Cronjé proposed a compromise: I could continue to direct the play, but my name was not to appear on the programme or anywhere on the publicity material. Francois steadfastly refused. In the end the au
thorities grudgingly resigned themselves to the inevitable, insisting only that Francois be placed officially in charge of the direction, which he quietly refrained from doing.

  Even in compiling the programme I was given a free hand, with the result that quotes from Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and others were used. In only one instance was permission refused: it concerned a stanza by the great Afrikaans poet N. P. van Wyk Louw, from a poem written in the late thirties, ironically a period when he had briefly come under the spell of Nazism:

  You are the oppressors

  and you the ones who trample us,

  us who are strong

  but helplessly humiliated

  The play opened to rave reviews. An exception was the Afrikaans Sunday paper Rapport which published a long article by my friend Bartho Smit, headed ‘Mountain Gives Birth to Mouse’.

  But even more important than the reviews was, for me, the opportunity the production offered of breaking into the real theatre. For the first time I could combine the writing of plays with stagecraft, working with professional actors. I could break out of the solitude that surrounds the writer and collaborate with others on projects that were larger than ourselves. It was an indispensable preparation for the battles of the seventies which lay ahead, when writers of all race and culture groups, threatened by the same power establishment, would learn to fuse their energies and offer a united front of resistance to a system which, otherwise, might have shattered us through the time-honoured tactic of dividing and ruling.