This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

7th July 2007

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More from the Marico

Patrick Mynhardt was one of the first actors to demonstrate that Herman Charles Bosman is very well suited to the stage. In fact, he became for many years the very embodiment of Oom Schalk Laurens, inimitable narrator of many of Bosman’s stories. But it seems that the possibilities for performing Bosman are far from exhausted, and in this year’s National Arts Festival programme there are no fewer than three shows based on his life and work, or inspired by the Groot Marico district that he made famous.

Bosman’s Women, featuring Lorna Burd and Barbie Meyer, is based on the writer’s troubled love relationships – not many people know that he was married three times. Burd and Meyer offer crisp characterisations of each of these women, and intersperse these with dramatisations of extracts from Bosman’s short stories and his prison memoir, Cold Stone Jug. Hearing Bosman’s wives relate their tempestuous (often comic, often tragic) tales, and then seeing two female actors narrate and act out scenes from Bosman’s work, has a curiously chastening effect: one realises just how much the female voice is excluded in the actual texts.

Another two-hander, A Year in the Marico, invokes Bosman as a literary reference point for Joe Niemand (Angus Douglas), a city-slicker who has sold his successful advertising agency and moved from Johannesburg to the Marico for peace, quiet and ‘the writer’s life’. He is befriended by Sakkie (Tim Sandham), a local farmer, and before long they have embarked on a campaign to sell Groot Marico as a tourist destination – a fantasy that develops, via appearances on Top Billing, into the improbable scenario of Sakkie being invited to serve his “bushveld cuisine” to world leaders at the G8 summit. The play pivots on the opposition of city and countryside, hinting at a ‘rural philosophy’ of authenticity that is threatened by the greed and gloss of advertising pay-off lines.

Finally, as part of WordFest (the ever-growing ‘literary wing’ of the festival), members of the Herman Charles Bosman Literary Appreciation Society – yes, there really is one – are bringing to light extracts from Bosman’s lesser-known poetry and essays in a musical performance.