“So, tell me what we’re seeing.”
I had rendezvoused with Jen in front of Bleeker Street’s Culture Project for a Sunday matinee. She promised a free theater ticket in an air-conditioned theater. It was last minute, but hell if I was turning her down.
“It’s the stories of five people in South Africa during Apartheid.”
“Oh, whoa. Light subject matter, huh?”
“Yeah, sorry. I guess I should have told you it was going to be depressing.”
Amajuba was a little depressing – but it was also really powerful and captivating. I think the performances would have had even the biggest badass I know on the verge of tears. At the end of the play, as the characters sing lines about ashes and dust, bright red-orange dirt is thrown by the shovelful onto the stage. Then the five actors each wash at a basin, splashing around, adding water to the mix. By the end, the is air thick with this dust, hanging in spotlights and crowding your nostrils, and the floor is a wash of crayola-colored mud.
Crossing the stage corner to leave the theater, Jen commented about the mess.
“Can you imagine having to clean that up after every performance?”
“No. And I can’t help but think that it’s no mistake when you leave, you take a part of the show away with you. I mean it’s all over my feet.” We lifted up our sandals to see gritty orange soles.
“And our lungs.”
“And hair.”
In junior high, I had a wee obsession with all things South Africa. (On vacation in Spain years later, I had a wee thing with a South African, but that’s another story.) My seventh grade geography teacher showed us The Power of One, and after three days in a dark classroom I felt two things very strongly:
a) Why had NO ONE told me about this?
b) PK is sooo hot.
I made my family watch the movie, I rented other movies about Apartheid and I even did an extra credit report about what I had learned. Nerd! Anyway, I’m sure it wasn’t long before I saw another sad movie and moved onto another cause, but stories about that time still really get to me. The play was no exception. It was amazing. If you live in New York and have a chance, I highly recommend seeing it.
And if you are ever in the south of Spain and you have a chance to make out with a South African in the common room of your hostel, I totally recommend doing that, too.
Rarr.
hahahahaa about that last comment.
I don’t live in NYC, so I can’t get to see the play, but I got to experience it through you, and it sounds like quite a powerful performance.
I admit to not knowing much about the Apartheid except for the basics, but the whole thing seems a little surreal. I could never quite grasp the idea of racism. We have virtually no black population here so the only feeling I get when I see black people here is curiosity, like I wanna know where they come from and what brought them here and such.
I remember talking to a black guy at the Atlanta airport once and commenting that in that particular airport there were more black people that I had ever seen in my life. Then it hit me, sometimes culture is everything, maybe what I was saying seemed rude because I did not feel the need to be politically correct since there was nothing to be euphemistic about in my world view. I would like to believe euphemisms are no longer necessary in the world, but I do not think so.
They covered this play on NPR this morning, and interviewed the playwright, who is a South African woman. All the “actors” were real people, telling real stories and expressing real feelings of what they went thru.
I’m actually jealous you got to go see it. Even the little snippets they played on the radio sounded intense.
That is the most compelling thing about it — that the stories are true and they happened to those exact people. What a thing to get to see. It was amazing.
It’s not about apartheid, but I’m sure you would love the recent South African movie “Tstosi.” I think it won best foreign film at the Oscars last year.
And go to South Africa.
And then read Biko. (And then read I Write What I Like, for his own words.)
And then keep reading, keep learning.
Thanks Fish.
This isn’t about your post (sorry!), but I saw the name of your last commenter…Debbie Downer. That may be the funniest SNL sketch this side of Cowbell!
Have you seen Red Dust? It is a fascinating film about post-apartheid South Africa and the Truth & Reconciliation Commission. It stars Hiliary Swank, and is well worth seeing.
Great post, especially because I automatically fade to visions of me making out with Charlize Theron in a hostel in the Spain, or was it an apple pickers shack in New Hampshire?
Haha, I’ll have to get to Spain ASAP then.
MM. The very beautiful South African from my past most certainly didn’t have a wee thing.
Good times.
i could so identify with this post – i’ve never been to south africa, but i too have a wee obsession with its history. it’s one of the places i really want to visit someday.
i saw the play when it was at BAM, and
i thought it was amazing and so powerful – i’d highly recommend it to anyone who can go see it. it touched us so much that we just walked around for a while talking about it afterwards – we didn’t want to go home and leave it behind. i second the recommendation above about reading biko. i’d also recommend reading the book “the power of one” (one of my absolute favorites), and some of bryce courtenay’s other books – “tandia” is also incredible.
p.s. i too had a thing for a south african. hot.
I actually am going to South Africa this fall, and I really have only the vaguest ideas about apartheid, apart from The Power of One. I’m furiously scribbling down these movie recommendations. Do you have any book recommendations from your middle school days, Fish? (Movies make me sleep..
)
If you have never read the book “The Power of One” you are missing out, as it is FAR better than the movie! Perhaps I am a little partial as it is my all time favorite book, but definitely one not to miss. I still have my South African obsession!
ha! I am STILL obessed with my “South African adventure.”
I first saw the Power of One in the 10th grade, and thus began my continuing fascination with PK – he was the epitome of hot (athletic and a heart of gold, oh my) when I was 15!
My dad had taught me for years about the horrors of apartheid, and that movie, crush and all, really hit home for me.
I was recently in England with my family, and we (Americans) were asked if were South Africans…I was torn between being thrilled that we didn’t come across as rude Americans and insulted because we were confused with the creators of Apartheid.
Great post!
Great post and at first glance the title looked like “Manatee” to me. Manatees are also very interesting.
I love manatees! Sadly, there weren’t any in the play.
I’m a big fan of South African wine. Does that count for anything?
Another good book is Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton. You can also cheat and rent the movie.
I spent a month in South Africa in the summer of 1984. There were too many “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” moments to recount here but it was indeed surreal for a middle class white kid from Canada.
We saw a couple of plays in a small theater there, both of which were very political in nature. One was about a black poet who had been beaten to death in police custody. I asked my uncle, a resident but not citizen of SA, if that sort of thing happened and he said that it was a weekly occurence to read about a prisoner who died from falling in the shower or whatever. I was a bit taken aback by this and wondered why the government would let this kind of play be shown. He was of the opinion that it was used as a safety valve; it would let people express their discontent without actually changing anything.
He’s also of the opinion that the only thing that’s changed since the end of apartheid is the colour of the skin of the crooks in charge. But then he’s pretty cynical.
I don’t get the whole obsession with South African people. Many of them look like regional people from Texas and other parts of the deep south. But if you like that look, go ahead.
Since I’m a girl I prefer the Jude Law, Denzel Washington, and Paul Newman kind of looks. They have more welcoming faces and appear friendlier. But if I had to look like someone I would choose either Thandi Newton, Michelle Pfieffer, Sophia Loren or Lya Kebede. Linda Evangelista is pretty too.
But the above play described sounds captivating. My favorite Africa based movie is Hotel Rwanda with DOn Cheadle, he is an excellent actor. He should have gotten that Oscar. He’s the modern day Sydney Portier.
Sorry, country alone doesn’t make some one attractive. let alone S. Africa. So many South Africans that I’ve met have superiority issues, and are mean personalities. Not to say they are all that way, but that is my experience, as an American who spends every summer and winter abroad.
I don’t dig Charlize Theron or Sienna Miller. Both are S. Africans, well Sienna’s mother is.
If I’m going to date African people let it be one of those beautiful Ethiopian or Somalial models like Iman or Lya Kebede. Or one of those African pageant winners, some one like that. They’re exotic looking and sooooooooo pretty.
Big brown eyes. Check. Great figures with long legs. Double Check.
If you like blondes, go Swedish at least. Alot of them have large bright eyes and have long legs.
South africans? Are you guys serious?
Hi Heather,
I just this very morning finished reading your entire blog. I mean the whole she-bang. I must say, it has some bang. I loved it all, and laughed my a** off, amoung other emotions. After getting so personal with someone, I just had to drop you a line and tell you just how much I enjoyed it. Also checked out Ari’s blog, and her little Q&A thing with Steve the Sex Addict. They are both frickin hallarious. I just had to tell you how much I enjoyed the last three years of your life, as completly insane (and stalker-ish) that my sound. Best wishes, and thank you for your v. witty perspective on it all. I will continue to read for many days to come, and wish you all the best!
Smiles,
Amy Beth
It’s been my dream for years to move to South Africa. One day.
I wholeheartedly encourage all of you who dream of going to South Africa to do so! You’ll never see another place like it.
And, y’know, I don’t think another nation would have been able to move past something like Apartheid nearly as well as South Africa has, in just twelve years.
Nkosi Sikeleli Afrika…
Can’t wait to go home at the end of the year!
And then there’s Canada……………………..
Greetings from JHB, South Africa! South Africa has some great talent (and I’m not just talking about the men
). 2 of my favourite local writers are Antje Krog (Country of My Skull) and J M Coetzee (Disgrace). Check them out. So when you coming to visit?
Oh yeah…SOuth African men… tasty.
I’ve been reading your blog for a long time and i just moved to NYC from Michigan about a month ago. When i read your comment about this show i bought tickets and ran out and saw it that same night. It was amazing! Extremely powervul and i never would have known about if you hadnt posted about it, so i guess i just wanted to say thanks, it was an amazing experience.