LEAH’S LONG-AWAITED PREGNANCY is coloured by the complicated emotions of hormonal changes, but bruised by other things in her world. Complete with a fickle boyfriend and an over enthusiastic mother, it seems the world into which her little baby will emerge is doomed. Ronel Mostert’s love story ‘n Tweede Kans (A Second Chance) is an Afrikaans-language radio play and it debuts this evening (12 November) on Radio Sonder Grense.
It’s a simple tale, caught in the web of predictability and a fairy-tale ending but the bigger value of this work is in how it has been scripted and crafted. Directed by Mari Snyman, and played by consummate professionals, the work deals with real emotions. While you know roughly what will happen, you are also swept away on the power of gratitude for a successful conception – for a woman who has clearly been trying to get pregnant for a long time; the power of love, when the child is delivered; and the power of support when you know that Leah does have someone to turn to when her world turns pear-shaped.
It’s a yarn about nasty vindictiveness in a social media-rife world and the dirty work of a classical misogynistic (and narcissistic) South African young man who is very far from being ready to be a father, which peeks into Leah’s history and sees other similar men. But as the title of the work indicates, there’s a knight in shining hospital scrubs who lends the work a happily-ever-after ending in the sweetest possible way.
- ‘n Tweede Kans is written by Ronel Mostert. Directed by Mari Snyman, and featuring technical input by Neria Mokwena and Evert Snyman, it is performed by Eloise Cupido, David Louw, Paul Lückoff, Heidi Mollentze, Rina Nienaber, Donovan Pietersen and Karen Wessels. It broadcasts on RSG on 12 November at 8pm, will be rebroadcast on 16 November at 1am in Radio Sonder Grense’s Deurnag programme, and is also available on podcast.