MURDER AND VIOLENCE have become so commonplace in South Africa these days that they often don’t make it to national headlines as they once may have. And in erasing the grand narrative from public awareness, the underlying personal tales of love and hope, of disappointment and stargazing get completely lost. Or do they? Grootpad na Klein Kop is this week’s Afrikaans-language radio play on RSG. Written by Lee Doubell, it reflects on how the universal truths of holding on to the one you love is bigger than a political drama.
Gawie (Anton Dekker) and Susan (Elize Cawood) are a married couple in their 70s. They’re vegetarian cattle farmers. He has a love for Van Morrison. She had a difficult relationship with her hair until she was in her 60s. They have a son and a daughter and some unexpected grandchildren on the way. Theirs has been a life coloured by the complexity of the land and the faux security of how the future can be plotted.
The play opens with the sharp interruption of their lives by two thugs; the couple is manhandled and frightened beyond their sense of hope. And while they are in pain and discomfort, darkness and terror, the threads of their life together, knitting and knotting together dreams and values, truths and semi-truths are what they find to hold on to.
It’s a frightening play on so many levels, but a heartening one too, that is about stripping prospects down to the bare basics and saying the things you haven’t had the courage to articulate as it is about making peace with things that have turned out differently from what you may have expected. Dekker and Cawood will keep you on the edge of your seat, crumpled tissues in hand throughout this muscular testimony to the slippery definition of real love. It’s a ten out of ten production. Don’t miss it!
- Grootpad na KleinKop (Big road to Klein Kop) is written by Lee Doubell. Directed by Duncan Johnson, and featuring technical input by Bongi Thomas and Patrick Monana, it is performed by Elize Cawood, Anton Dekker, David Louw, Thato Maphoroma, Patrick Monana and Cindy Swanepoel and broadcasts on RSG on November 7 at 8pm. It is rebroadcast on the station’s all night programme, Deurnag at 1am on Monday November 11 and is also available on podcast: rsg.co.za