Pansy, being Pansy, loves to watch shows over and over again. Classics, whether books or movies, take on a different meaning depending on her current and past life experiences. One of her theatre classics is The Chilli Boy.
The Chilli Boy is a story about an Indian woman from Umkomaas (sugar cane region near Durban) who is reincarnated as a gangster from Boksburg. The actor, Matthew Ribnick, plays 5 main characters and 8 secondary characters. His facial expressions, accents and posture are so flawlessly executed that the audience knows exactly which character he is portraying, even when acting a scene that contains several characters.
For the readers unfamiliar with Gauteng, Boksburg is on the East Rand, near the airport. i.e. not chic Sandton (North) nor half-chic Randburg (West) nor black Soweto (South). East Rand is where Charlize Theron comes from. The Porras are the Portuguese, the Lebs are the Lebanese. The Porras and the Lebs are always at each other's throats. The Greeks tend to be the hitmen. Crass generalisations but you get the picture.
So back to classics, this time around, Pansy found Ribnick's portrayal of the gangster's mother as being particularly endearing - it was a very accurate portrayal of a typical South African middle class white urban woman. The same as any middle class woman anywhere, I suppose. Quite simple and uncomplicated. Just doing her thing: raising children, wishing they would get a decent job so they can drop her off at work instead of her using the bus, dying of embarrassment when she has to ask the blacks next door for a lift to the hospital in the middle of the night, freaking out that her son might be gay...
Simple and conservative. A bit like the lady at the Linden pottery shop. Pansy was enquiring about the raku firing class, and during the course of the conversation the lady asked Pansy, "Are you married yet?"
Yet.
Y........E...........T!!!!!
Dear reader, see what I mean? About the conservatism? The expectations! The assumptions!
Linden is very afrikaans. The people are nice. So then the (afrikaans) lady was speaking about the raku class and said, "Ag*, eets soh naas, eets kaanda laak soh-shal. Eets from naan till hafpast too. Yu just breeng yor beeyah...or yor waan...en yor tjopps en stake, en just sommer** haf a naas taam."
A somewhat amused Petal was thinking to herself, "Hmmm, I might just roast a butternut..."
Pansy has learnt a lot about South African society since she first watched The Chilli Boy in 2005. Back then, living in Durban, she could only really identify with the portrayal of the Indian characters, and she didn't understand any of the afrikaans. Now she has a better appreciation of the depiction of Joburg's East Rand and the dynamics between the Porras, the Lebs, the Greeks and the Jews.
Chilli Boy is a wonderful play, many good laughs, highly recommended.
*ach, it's so nice, it's kinda like social, it's from nine till half past two. You just bring your beer, or your wine, and your chops and steak, and just sommer have a nice time
** sommer is an afrikaans interjection, often used to emphasise something easy and uncomplicated. but sometimes you just sommer use sommer, just for no particular reason
No comments:
Post a Comment