Pieter-Dirk Uys invites you to an Audience With Pieter-Dirk Eish! at the Theatre on the Bay from 19th February.
“My new 2015 look at South Africa and the world around us, An Audience with Pieter-Dirk Eish! is developing into an unexpected national assembly of my satirical cluster of characters, some who have been with me since the 1980s. While it has always been my aim to remind us where we come from, it is more of a necessity now to celebrate where we are going.
Does history repeat itself and turn tragedy into farce? Maybe on some minor levels of stupidity – thinking of the famed Gupta Wedding Fiasco and the Nkandla Firepool Gala. But looking at the characters and stories I have lined up, some old, so new, some borrowed, some blue, I don’t really believe that history does repeat itself in South Africa. Here it just rhymes: from apartheid to tripartite; from amandla to Nkandla!
The challenge of having 20 numbered boxes on the stage and remaining calm enough to throw myself at the mercy of the choices of every night’s audience is a bit crazy. There is usually no democracy on my stage. There I am the Vladimir Putin of theatre. I know what I do; where I do it; how I do it, and when I do it. So that starting in a suit can easy and smoothly end the show in a dress. But now I am at the mercy of a lottery!
Like that great old Springbok Radio show Pick a box, the audience will choose a number and I will have to expose what is in that box. Not just that, but also ad-lib a connection to the next choice of box, which means that every performance will be different. As so many of the characters in the chorus line are our vibrant and inspiring politicians, maybe most members of the audience will call the show Kies ‘n Doos!
Evita Bezuidenhout, now in her 80th year, is the Sophia Loren of the gang. I know how grumpy people get when they don’t see her in the show. That’s a chance they and I have to take. I’ll encourage them to pretend they’re in Parliament, looking at twenty MPs sitting in a row. Then try and choose the one with a brain! So good luck with finding Mrs B! ”
COME, PICK A BOX AND MAKE LAUGH, NOT WAR! – by Pieter-Dirk Uys
WHEN: 19 Feb to 14 March 2015. Mon to Sat @ 8pm | Sat 07 & 14 March @ 5.30pm & 8pm
WHERE: Theatre on the Bay, 1 Link Road, Camps Bay, Cape Town 8005
