I live in Darling, darling

Wednesday afternoon. Editorial meeting. Board room. 66 New Market Street Cape Town. "Would you like to interview Pieter-Dirk Uys for the next issue?" My editor asked me nicely. I hesitated for a bit because I realised it could sound silly, but then asked, "Is he well-known?" My colleagues looked at me like they just saw an alien cleaning the windows behind me. It was quiet for a little while, untill my editor came up with the answer. "Yes, he is actually. He is South Africa's most famous political comedian. Maybe you know his alter ego, Evita Bezuidenhout? Does that ring a bell?" It didn't ring a bell either. I fell a little embarrassed, which I tried not to show, and travelled to Darling the next week to find out everything about this famous guy, I had never heard of.

"I live in Darling, darling. Doesn't that sound amazing?" Pieter-Dirk Uys (61) said when I just arrived in his theatre. About ten years ago he converted the old Darling station, now called 'Evita se Perron', into a theatre with two stages. He had no reason to come to Darling at all, he took a wrong turn off. "I felt in love with the house right in the car. I had a piece of boerewors for lunch and bought the house straight away. The landlord asked me if I wanted to use the old Darling station as a storage place for R70 per month. I decided to make a little stage there with some chairs and tables. People in Darling asked me if I was mad. I think mad is good. So I answered, Yes I am mad, thank god."

Writer, satirist, actor and entertainer Pieter-Dirk Uys wrote plays in the late '60s and '70s. When the apartheid regime banned his plays and he got into trouble with the government he had to think of something else. "It was frightening but it was the right thing to do. It was difficult to employ me to write a play because the censor board would stop it and that costs money. So then I started doing one-man shows. Late at night, when the police were drunk and the security guards were in bed with each other. That is the start of the politicians I play, and the start of the character Evita Bezuidenhout, now South Africa's most famous white woman. It became an interesting reflection of politics, people loved it and nobody could blame me because Evita didn't really exist, she was a woman I made up." 

Pieter-Dirk Uys performs seven days a week. He wants to keep on going with Aids-awareness programs in South African schools, and he is busy planning his overseas shows. He wants to go to London, back to the Netherlands, Tibet, the US as well as do shows in Johannesburg and Cape Town. People often ask him if foreigners understand his humour. "I don't get that, we don't have a sense of humour. We kill people, we shoot children in the back of their heads. You don't need a degree to understand that." Besides, he doesn't think he is funny at all. "I can't make jokes, I'm not funny. I tell the truth and the truth sometimes happens to be funny."

More info on Pieter-Dirk Uys? Click here

Comments

[Anna]

hee meis, mooi artikel! wat is het toch gaaf dat je er zo op uit mag om dit soort dingen te vinden. wauw. veer. wauw. en gelukkig mag je nog even blijven, voor veel meer nog. dag lief. in gedachten ben ik er een beetje bij soms en ik blijf lezen tot je er weer bent! xx

[marie-elise]

Hi Veerle,
Weer een fijn artikel om te lezen.Ik kijk al weer uit naar het volgende. Geniet van de mogelijkheden die je krijgt.Succes!
Mies