I have often been asked
many questions about my career as a jobbing actor, some I always find infuriating
like; how do you learn your lines? Some that I must ponder on and then consider
if I should give an informative and truthful answer.
One such regular
question is; what was your most enjoyable play, film or TV production?
To answer this
question, I have to take some time and try and wrack my ageing-hard-drive as
I’ve been performing professionally for
over fifty-eight years and one’s memory does decline as the years pass by.
I’ll start with Gulls,
a superb play by Australian playwright Robert Hewett. It premiered in Australia
in 1983 and won Hewett The Green Room Award.
A well-travelled and
doyen of South African Theatre at the time Moyra Fine, who had established a
production company in 1982 called Volute, with
the original intention to stage plays that the People’s Space Theatre, the
first multi-racial theatre in South Africa could not finance, secured the
performance rights.
The director was Mr Keith Grenville and here is caught here
having a cuppa with Moyra.
I was offered the role of the leading character Bill,
a forty-year-old man, who because of a car accident had supposedly the mind of
a brain-damaged eight-year-old child. I was immediately attracted to the part
and accepted the role. The production opened at the Nico Malan Theatre in Cape
Town on the 17th of July 1987.
The other cast members were Jeremy Taylor, Bill’s
close friend who was driving the car when the accident occurred, Diane Wilson,
Bill’s sister, and the late Joy Stewart-Spenser who played Molly, their next
door neighboured who looked after Bill while his sister was at work.
This is myself with Jeremy in the opening scene.
The play utilized the incredibly talented Adrain
Kohler and his newly formed Handspring Puppet Company. Adrian designed and made
the two seagull puppets, which were an integral part of the production. The
puppeteers were Mark Hoeben and Andre Rootman.
The production won three Fleur du Cap awards in 1987 and went on to play
in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban and finally closed two years later in Port
Elizabeth, and the present day FNB
Theatre Award (National) is named “The Moyra Fine Award for Outstanding
Contribution to Theatrical Life”. This award is for individually and jointly
continuing to encourage and develop theatre for all, in the face of stringent
apartheid legislation.
As you can
see the production was a massive success and played to full houses in all the
cities across South Africa.
For me?
I enjoyed
it, the whole production team and cast became close friends, we were like a
family for over two years, even though there were a couple of cast changes.
I pranced
nightly across the stage gurgling and talking to the other characters as if I
was from another planet and then suddenly the action froze, and I talked
directly to the audience in standard Australian-English.
This
transformation seen her with my sister on the left, from a crippled brain damaged idiot to a normal man, transfixed the audiences and every night for the two years we received standing
ovations at the curtain call.
It was
certainly enjoyable and exhausting. I consumed an enormous quantity of liquid
refreshment till the early hours of the following morning after every
performance without exception.
Bizarre
and eventful jaunts happened throughout the run. I remember a party at the
residence of co-producer of the production when we played a season at the
Baxter theatre.
John
Slemon, seen to the left after imbibing was infamous at the time for his ability to
consume all alcoholic beverages and was the former manager of the Abbey Theatre
in Dublin. He was brought out to South Africa to start up and run the new
theatre with enormous success. He retired in 1995,
One Friday
night we all ended up in the plunge pool for his sauna at his house in
Simonstown and raucously sang old Irish republican songs.
At four in
the morning the police were called by a neighbour who was complaining about the
noise. We obliged, and the party ended. I drove back to my friend’s house in
Devils Peak where I was staying. I had just purchased a new old vintage BMW and
that was it last drive it had as I drove headlong in to a city transport early
morning bus that was weaving its way down the winding Devils’ Peak road.
The car
was a write-off but fortunately I was unharmed, and the city bus driver
received a handsome gratuity from my friend as we surreptitiously towed the
wreckage away to Don’s garage. There were no other witnesses as the bus, which
was basically undamaged apart from a bent bumper, was empty.
So, the handsome bride, which I repaid to Don was well spent. The BMW underwent an inspection by my insurance company who were amazed that so much damaged could be caused by me accidently driving it into Don’s gate.
So, the handsome bride, which I repaid to Don was well spent. The BMW underwent an inspection by my insurance company who were amazed that so much damaged could be caused by me accidently driving it into Don’s gate.
I never
bought another car after that incident and always purchased old Bakkies, like a
1984 Nissan Champ 1400, which I still carts away the garden rubbish weekly to
this day.
The final
party after the closing of the production in Port Elizabeth was also a grand
affair. It was in the Opera house Theatre, the oldest theatre in the Republic.
As a farewell gesture I ordered four hundred of the finest Port Elizabeth harvested local
oysters to be delivered and Moyra Fine, who incidentally was Raymond Ackerman’s
sister, arranged that the liquor costs were covered by the supermarket chain
which Raymond owned.
The event
was drowned in oysters with Guinness and Champagne chasers to wash them down.
The other
play that offered equal enjoyment and exhaustion was Diary of a Madman, I have
written about this play in several previous posts and madness certainly came
very close to the surface in my own hard-drive! I start off as a lower-class
civil servant and end up in the lunatic asylum.
This was
the first production in which I was the script-adaptor, part director,
transport manager and co-producer as well as lead and only performer.
My long-
time friend, Karoly Pinter came up with the idea that we should adapt Gogol’s
magnificent short story into a one-man play. A psychiatrist who worked with us
as a medical advisor said it was the best description off paranoia
schizophrenia he had ever read. Doctor Bass who started everyday of his working
life at the Rustenberg psychiatric clinic with a double brandy and coke, so
that he could deal with an elderly black patient who could recite every word of
Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth daily.
We started
work on this straight after Gulls has closed and spent six months in rehearsal
interspersed with visits to the local psychiatric hospitals while we adapted
the short story and turned it into a one hour fifteen-minute monologue. It was
gruelling work, but we finally had a finished product which opened at the
Windybrow 100-seater theatre in I think 1986.
It was a
huge success again winning 4 awards for myself and Karoly, the production ran
for nine weeks to full houses. We then toured down to Cape Town running at the
Nico Malan for ten weeks, a return season of six weeks at the Market theatre.
Because
Karoly and I were co-producers of the production we kept a very careful eye on
the bookings and how much income was coming in at the box-office. We had struck
up share deals with all the theatres on a sixty forty percent split of the box
office takings.
At the
closing of the production which was after about a year three months of hard
graft Karoly and I sat down with a calculator had did some mathematics. It
turned out that over the one year and three months we had worked on the piece
we had earned the princely sum of one Rand eighty-two cents each per hour of
work!!!!! We even added in the prize money we had received from the best
director and best actor awards we had won!!!!
The life
of a jobbing actor is not financially rewarding as many of you may think.
On this
production the most memorable event occurred on Karoly’s and my drive down to
the mother city of Cape Town, a fourteen-hour haul with an unloaded bakkie,
which we both owned. My 1984 Nissian champ and Karoly’s Alfa Romeo. We loaded
all the set and numerous props into the vehicles and we set off. I had the home
constructed cell toilet, a metal box with a bucket covered with a toilet seat,
as my friend resting precariously on the passenger seat.
This is me as
Poprischen with the toilet seat around my head in the show.
Just about
ten kilometres after by-passing Bloemfontein Karoly’s Afla showed signs of
overheating and after discarding the idea of pissing in the radiator we decided
to drive into Bloemfontein and seek mechanical help. After an hour we received
the verdict from the Bloemfontein mechanic, the radiator was completely fucked
and would have to be replaced. The fastest he could do this was a week as the
spare part had to come from Port Elizabeth over a thousand kilometres away.
It was
decided we should try and load all Karoly’s props and set into and onto my
Bakkie. We purchased about fifty metres of nylon rope and we set of with the
cell-toilet and various other things tied onto my roof rack. Twelve hours later
we arrived in Cape Town and started setting up the set in the Nico Malan
theatre. Karoly was also the lighting designer so he had to stay and rig the
lights and work through all the sound and lighting cues with the local stage
manager. I at least could retire to again My friend Don’s house where I had
been invited.
The
following day we opened again to rave reviews and the local producer from CAPAB
assured us the advance booking were excellent. They were and ten weeks later we
drove ladened northwards again with the set to firstly Bloemfontein to pick up
the Alfa and on to Johannesburg.
After the
return season at the Market we were invited to do one show in what was then
called a homeland. Bophuthatswana
was created only for
the Tswana people and was
one of the homelands created by the then Afrikaner Nationalist government.
These Bantustans or homelands were established
by the Apartheid Government. They were areas to which most of the Black
population was moved to prevent them from living in the urban areas of South
Africa. The idea was to separate Blacks from the Whites and give Blacks the
responsibility of running their own independent governments, thus denying them
protection and any remaining rights a Black could have in South Africa. In other
words, Bantustans were established for the permanent removal of the Black
population in White South Africa. This is a shot of the set-up in Bophuthatswana,
with Karoly instructing the positioning of the lights.
The show was a huge success and we amazed at the number of Black Africans who saw the performance all spoke with American accents. We observed this at the after-show function which was organised by the theatre in conjunction with UNESCO, thus explaining the amount of Americaneeze spoken. Also, Bophuthatswana had its own broadcasting corporation which aired mostly American TV programmes!
The show was a huge success and we amazed at the number of Black Africans who saw the performance all spoke with American accents. We observed this at the after-show function which was organised by the theatre in conjunction with UNESCO, thus explaining the amount of Americaneeze spoken. Also, Bophuthatswana had its own broadcasting corporation which aired mostly American TV programmes!
Some
of Poprischen’s lines remain with me today as he spoke of the real-truth about
the world in which he lived and many of us still do today:
“I
need people not dogs! I need spiritual nourishment to feed and enrich my soul. Why ? Why is it always generals and
gentlemen of the court? People like me who manage to scrape together a few
crumbs of happiness and just as we are about to reach out and grasp it along
comes a general or gentleman of the court to snatch it away.”
A good observation on life in general!
I hope that answers the question. I deal with my favourite films in another post.
Please comment, it will be appreciated!!
1 comment:
Well done Ron, the "accounts" remind me of a friend from the early 80's in Chiswick, who as a Mum ,with a live in nanny, worked full time for British Airways. At the end of each month she was 1p richer.
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