This article first appeared in www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com

17th August 2010

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When Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot – a play in which the second act is a distorted mirror of the first – was first performed in the 1950s, a bemused critic wrote: “Nothing happens, twice”. Yet that same reviewer (Vivian Mercier) also acknowledged that the playwright “keeps audiences glued to their seats”. Indeed, Waiting for Godot subsequently became one of the most celebrated and widely performed plays of the twentieth century. So “nothing” has been happening an awful lot on stages across the globe over the last five decades.

Vladimir and Estragon, two down-and-out tramps, wait under a dead tree on a nameless road for the appearance of a mysterious Mr Godot. With only one another’s company to relieve the monotony of their (ultimately unfulfilled) expectation, they pass the time bickering and singing, remembering and complaining, laughing and crying, until they encounter another duo desperately searching for meaning: the master-and-slave Pozzo and Lucky. “Didi” and “Gogo” – nicknames demonstrating the intimacy of their relationship, despite their constant disagreements – are by turns clowns and poets. They are preoccupied by physical discomfort, but every so often they voice profound metaphysical questions. Godot is an enigma because these questions are never quite answered ... unless, of course, the answer is “nothing”.

This article first appeared in BUSINESS DAY

5th August 2010

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So, it’s Fly-the-Flag Friday again tomorrow. Will you wear a football or other sporting jersey? Good. Will your office building be adorned with the South African flag? Good. Let’s be honest: standard business attire gets a little dull, and most workplaces could do with some livening-up. But let’s also be careful: what do we mean when we say we want to “promote patriotism”?

A flurry of announcements and press releases, relating to various post-World Cup campaigns aimed at maintaining the national pride felt and expressed by most South Africans during the tournament, have given me pause for thought. The more I am told about the joy-inducing legacy of 2010, the more I feel somewhat sad – and somewhat uncomfortable too.

This article first appeared in Book SA

5th July 2010

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The quarter-finals have come and gone – and with them, Ghana’s participation in the tournament. Despite the reservations I expressed in my last post, I found myself cheering fanatically for the Ghanaians because I desperately wanted to see an African team progress to the penultimate round. 

The manner of their exit was, of course, mortifying. Luis Suarez (he of the illegal goal-line save that led to the penalty that led to ... well, we don’t like to talk about what followed) has demonstrated throughout the tournament that he is a particularly dislikeable footballer – such a skilled player, yet one who exhibits petulance and sheer treachery in equal measure every game. Come to think of it, he’s not entirely different to another South American handball specialist we all love to hate. 

This article first appeared in BOOK SA

28th June 2010

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As I type these words, the USA are preparing to take on Ghana in a second round clash that leaves me in something of a quandary.

Even before their surprise showing at last year’s Confederations Cup, I was a fan of the Americans – I like their effervescent energy and their never-say-die perseverance, their fluent passing game and the fact that their team does not depend on individual superstars (although of course they demonstrate some fine individual skills). 

Ghana, on the other hand, is a team that I intuitively want to support. Sure, I admire their on-field performance; but it’s their significance as the last remaining African team in the tournament that makes me want to get 100% behind them. I’m aware that ‘Africa’ is an historical construct – and a European one at that – rather than a readily definable place or concept (self-contained land mass or not) and I realise that, like all South Africans, I’m being rather duplicitous in choosing to affirm my African identity. Nonetheless, for the sake of ‘my’ continent, I really want the Black Stars to succeed. 

This article first appeared in BOOK SA

21st June 2010

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Fooled by the appearance of Sport versus Art into thinking that I am some kind of football fundi, Ben Williams (effervescent editor of the wonderful literary website Book SA) has asked me to keep an informal, infrequent World Cup Diary. Here's the first installment ... 

It doesn’t matter that Siphiwe Tshabalala missed a couple of opportunities, early in the match between South Africa and Uruguay, to set a different tone to the contest (with Steven Pienaar roaring for the ball on his outside, Tshabalala spooned both his shots high and wide of the goal). It doesn’t matter that Bafana Bafana are, as a result of the heavy loss that followed, highly unlikely to qualify for the knock-out stages of the World Cup. Heck, it doesn’t even matter if Tshabalala never scores another goal – that golden strike against Mexico was enough to secure his place in South African sporting lore and legend.

This article first appeared in THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

23rd May 2010

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All of Shakespeare’s plays give expression, at some point, to the playwright’s egalitarian impulses. The most famous of them, Hamlet, is no exception – the protagonist’s graveside musing takes delight in the fact that the powerful and wealthy will eventually decompose, becoming nothing more than mud and dust.

Hamlet does not, however, have the ability to escape his ‘station’ in life; he cannot blur the lines of class, nationality and gender that define his identity. That privilege belongs instead to his beloved players, the travelling troupe of actors who take on different roles with each performance: from kings to peasants and from generals to shoemakers.

A group of South African actors is currently experiencing an acute form of this role-swapping – and discovering the rich theatrical possibilities it contains.

This article first appeared in THE TIMES

3rd May 2010

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The Times newspaper found out about my new book, Sport versus Art: A South African Contest (Wits University Press) and asked me to write something for them. I thought I'd said all I wanted to say on this topic in my introduction to the multi-authored book ... but there's always more to be said!

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Last week, I tuned my car radio to Kaya FM and listened to the ebullient team from “Good Morning Gauteng” fielding calls. The phone-in topic was “Stalkers” – a subject that produced anecdotes about all manner of obsessive, dysfunctional or otherwise unhealthy relationships.

This article first appeared in BUSINESS DAY 

20th April 2010

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Within the space of a few weeks, the AWB has morphed from a moribund and fragmented collection of white supremacists headed by a widely derided ex-convict into a ‘viable’ political party experiencing a ‘leadership crisis’.

Not entirely coincidentally, it has become evident to even the most myopic members of the ANC top brass that the ruling party’s Youth League is also experiencing a leadership crisis which – having already decimated the League’s credibility – is undermining the entire organisation.

It seems to me that the solution is simple. Julius Malema should be ‘redeployed’ and placed at the helm of the AWB, thus solving both problems.

This article first appeared in www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com

25th March 2010

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It’s true that the arts can flourish under conditions of poverty. The stereotype of the starving artist living in a tiny garret is, however, a notion cherished only by the privileged (and perpetuated by productions like Rent, or films like Moulin Rouge).

The reality is that few artists – actors, musicians, visual artists, even writers – could survive, let alone create, without patronage. Sponsorship of the arts remains a fraught issue in countries like South Africa, where government funding is limited and big corporates tend to think of arts-related spending as a charitable donation rather than as an investment that will see returns.

This article first appeared in www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com

25th February 2010

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Sandra and Hein de Villiers believe so strongly in the importance of opera that they have been known to mortgage their own house to fund a production – not once, but twice.

Mrs de Villiers is the CEO of Opera Africa, the company that she started in 1994 “with the vision of fostering new audiences for opera that were previously excluded from enjoying this genre, and to promote talented young soloists and choristers”. Mr de Villiers has been Opera Africa’s Artistic Director since 1995; like his wife, he brought with him a distinguished track record from more than two decades in music education (as both teacher and administrator).