Answering Questions

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.

On stage, two productions immediately come to the fore. Diary of a Madman and Gulls, both these performances were in the nineteen-eighties when I was still in my early middle-age and they happened in the space of three years. I also won awards for both, a small cup, a medallion, and a paltry amount of money, which was quickly spent in a bar celebrating my thirst and that of many others. Once Toddie was filled and a dozen or so rounds of drinks was purchased for friends and hangers-on the prize money became an empty hole in my pocket. This is myself going to the podium to collect my medal and pittance.

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 17^th 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.

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!

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!!

Mountain Sanctuary Park and Memories

Memory is an awe-inspiring commodity.

Is it on sale? Can it be bought, sold, or bartered?

We all possess it; our brains retain it.

Today's renowned scientists say it is an intrinsic attribute that all of mankind and many animals have the function to retain and learn from past experiences. This is memory at work.

All you animal lovers that have a pet will know how your dog comes to your whistle, your cat hears its pellets being poured into its bowl and it never forgets where it's litter is.

A memory that constantly stays with me is often catapulted to the forefront of my grey matter is of an old South African friend of the mid-seventies. Marcel van Heerden, a fellow thespian who I worked with back then. The old photograph I have is of him seated on a throne- sculptured rock high on the northern slopes of the Magaliesberg mountain range to the west of Pretoria.

 It was taken when he led me into that mystic and beautiful mountain range in 1975.

His walking-stick lies across him like a ceremonial baton, my dog on his lap and his mongrel pooch stands at the side.

We had just scaled the southern slope, clambering up a rocky-strewn ravine and the summit was our first rest since we had begun the ascent at eight o'clock in the morning.

It had been an exhausting climb and we both needed a rest before we began our descent through the cavernous rock pools of Tonquani Gorge.

The first pool we reached, about an hour later was a God-sent gift. Our aching and sweaty bodies were quickly stripped and in we plunged. The ice-cold water revitalized our tired muscles and swimming back to lie drying on a sun-soaked rocky platform was one of my best memories of life in the South African bush! 

Marcel told me there three more pools we had to visit before we pitched camp for the night under an overhanging rocky roof where could light a fire and graze.

That was the first time I'd heard the South African colloquial expression for eating and it was then that we developed our understanding of our cultural and social differences.

An important occurrence!

As it was to become the basis for the scene that we co-scripted in the late Barney Simon's innovative production of "Cincinnati", that was about to start rehearsal for performance at the new Market Theatre.

Marcel was a country born Afrikaaner and the city of Johannesburg was a new place to him; I too was a stranger to the city and the whole country, yet on this two-day hike we discovered we had a lot in common.

His grandfather like mine had been a keen vegetable grower, he knew a lot about the geology of the range we were on and I’d studied geology in my last year at school. We both loved food and often ate things and experimented with meats and vegetables we’d never tasted or seen before.

We dived down the gorge from one magnificent rock pool to another our only pause was at the second pool when Marcel’s dog suddenly started barking madly.

The pooch certainly was aware of another presence in the vicinity. Marcel told me to stop moving immediately and surveyed the area paying particular interest in the area right next to the pool. He detected a movement about five metres away from us.

A snake, a Boomslang!

It was about four feet in length, a bright green colour and it moved with the speed of a formula one race car.

“It’s deadly, one bite and you’re a gonner!” said Marcel.

 I instinctively took a step backwards,

“Don’t move!” yelled Marcel. I was petrified.

 Marcel remained frozen and in what can be only thirty seconds the snake disappeared into the surrounding rocks. His pooch stopped barking and Marcel said, “We’re safe now.”

He dived into the rock pool. It took me about a minute to pluck up the courage to follow him. We both surfaced and clambered onto the pool side.

“That was very weird,” he said, “They are usually found in trees! That’s where the name comes from Boom, tree in in English.”

“So, what’s it doing here?”
“Having a drink.”

“Reckon we do the same,” I said as I pulled out two cans of the local larger, Castle, from my back-pack, I opened them and passed one to Marcel, “Cheers, n’ baai dankie” I said trying out my Afrikaans.

Marcel laughed, “’N Rooinek!”
Another novel word, A Red-Neck, an English man, a red neck from the sun!

We moved on down the Tonquani gorge and explored two more magnificent rock pools with waterfalls that provided a route down which you could slide into the lower pool. All the time we were encased in the unassailable cliffs on each side. We selected a flattish rock surface, with an overhang as Marcel had said. We unpacked and pitched camp for the night.

We unloaded our Cadac-gas-burners, one for cooking and one for a night-light and soon we were settled down to eating one of Marcel’s South African creations, mealie pap and a minced stew concoction which I was told was called “Bobotie”, a Cape-Malay dish that was certainly very moreish!

Pap is made by mixing water with dried ground mealies. The secret is to get the right consistency, too much water and its ruined, too little and its inedible. Marcel's creation was perfect; he deftly scooped with his thumb and forefingers just the right amount of Pap on which he adroitly scooped his Bobotie,

He then attempted to teach me the correct way to eat the dish using his two forefingers and thumb. I tackled the procedure but after three failed attempts I returned to the use of fork and spoon. He giggled continuously as the pap and mince fell onto the ground and was immediately gobbled up by our eager pets, even though we had fed them earlier with dog-pellets.

As the evening wore on we chatted and discussed our early lives in our respective hemispheres. Here again our conversation found it’s way into our improvisation of our meeting in the main Johannesburg railway station. Our conversation finally saw the light of day 3 months later in Barney Simon’s production of “Cincinnati” at the Market theatre.

The entire play was created by the eight cast members and Barney over a 2-month improvisional exercise. It went on to be a tremendous success for the “Company” and the newly created Market Theatre playing to full houses for the initial ten weeks run with returns over the years, the last being in the early two-thousands.

With hindsight you could say that part of it came from two young culturally diverse minds grappling with the arduous surrounds of the Tonquani-Gorge in the Magaliesberg Mountain range.

The following morning after a great sleep under the stars, an early plunge and wash in the cascading mountain stream, we packed up all our belongings including rubbish and began climbing out of the gorge back the range’s summit and then our descent on the southern slope back to Marcel’s motorbike, where our weary bodies and two pets, packed in shoulder bags, began our trip back to civilization in Johannesburg.

Since that expedition into Tonquani-Gorge way back in the early seventies, I discovered an entry through the equally marvelous hidden campsite called Mountain Sanctuary Park.

This majestic get-a-way mountain park is accessed by vehicle on the northern slopes of the range and from there you can enter Tonquani gorge if you get the right permit, available at the park.

This exquisite campsite park offers accommodation as well as areas to pitch tents and is now run by Owen and his sister and has wooden and stone cabins to rent as well as campsites offering electricity, a large bathing area with solar heated water, and a magnificent swimming pool overlooking Buffelspoort dam to the North.

It was previously owned by their parents, and had far less to offer, however taking our tents and camping gear along, the place became a hide-a-way for myself, son and daughter through the eighties, nineties, and on into the twenty first century.

Worth a visit!!

For the Memories!

http://www.mountain-sanctuary.co.za/

Please, please comment on the tale either on blog page or Sir Cess Poole's Diaries on Facebook. Thanx!!!

Fortune and The Company's Eyes

So, what now?

You’ve been informed about the acting electricians in the early days of The Market Theatre, I thought it was about time that I told a tale about some actors acting.

This is because of the reaction to my tale about the early days of the Company and the Market Theatre, so I’ve decided that I should take you into one of its old broom cupboards which was upstairs, where today you’d find the wardrobe department.

Back in 1976 it was an empty space that we rehearsed in for the production of “Fortune and Men’s Eyes” with the late Barney Simon, which was to be performed at the Nunnery, a small venue on the campus of Wits University.

The play was written by John Herbert in 1967 and explores a young man's experience in prison, delving into the themes of homosexuality and sexual slavery.

It was based in part by Herbert's own experience; he spent four months imprisoned in a youth reformatory after having been convicted of wearing drag in 1967. The character of Queenie in the play is an authorial self-insertion.

The title comes from Shakespeare’s sonnet 29, which begins with the line "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes".

The characters are “Rocky”, a juvenile delinquent who has been in prison before and knows the ropes, played by the late Bill Flynn. “Smitty”, a new inmate played by Paul Slabolepszy, “Mona”, a fragile possibly gay inmate who has been in for some time, played by Danny Keogh and the transvestite “Queenie”, played by myself. And a fifth character our warder played by Nigel Vermaas.

All were intricate deep characters and each of us knew we were about to embark on some seriously deep challenging work.

Barney was one of my favourite directors and he often said, “You’ve got to find it in yourself!”

His first mission was trying to get us four inmates of the prison to understand what confinement, in a small enclosed space, was really like; and how the feeling would affect our various characters.

To do this, he locked the four of us in the afore-mentioned small old broom cupboard sometimes for a whole day with a short break for a walk, a drink and a urination.

The cupboard had no window, the only visibility out was from the top of the cupboard door which had a slatted ventilation, if this was forced upward we could see the legs of the fifth character in the play, our warden, played by Nigel Vermass, and he was forced to sit outside, also for the whole day, so he could search his inner-self to discover why he was such a vindictive bastard.

One of the longer walls was bare, the other had four sturdy shelves, approximately one metre fifty in length and about forty centimetres in depth or width.

We were all young and fit so in no time at all Dannny Keogh, playing the frail inmate Mona, was soon lying precariously on his back on the topmost shelf, feeling he would get away from the torments that Rocky threw about.

Not to be outdone Bill, as Rocky, climbed onto the third shelf and helped the new inmate Smitty up onto the second.

I have always had an aversion to the smell of breaking wind and in the afternoon, seeing as we’d all eaten baked beans at our fifteen-minute lunch break, bought at the handy Spar market across the road at that time, I knew what was in store.


So, I took the concrete floor and used one of the four blankets Barney had given us. On the floor I could lie either on my back or propped up by an elbow on my side.


My A-level physics had taught me that hot air rises, and it sure did, everything I emitted, and that Paul and Bill released rose up to give poor Danny a torrid time. He complained bitterly and leapt down to breathe the clean air rolling in under the door. He even asked Nigel to get us some fresh air spray.

Of course, Nigel the warder, refused.

Our first stint in the cupboard was from nine thirty in the morning till four thirty in the afternoon, with two five-minute breaks for a drink, a pee, a walk, and a fifteen-minute break for lunch. After that first Monday of rehearsals we all kept our diets free from methane producing products.

Tuesday, we were placed in the cupboard again, same again Wednesday but we were released at five-thirty, Thursday, with an added half an hour and Friday, with another full hour added, but on Saturday morning we read the play! What a relief and all of us agreed that our confinement certainly helped and opened many new avenues for us to explore. Even Nigel, who has only ten or so lines in the piece, was twice as vicious and doubly mean.

On Sunday Barney asked me to pop round to his house. I knew what was coming. How on earth was I going to manage Queenie’s song “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, which he sings at the opening of the second act in full drag.


He gave me a recording of Bessie Smith doing the song. I had already told Barney that I was tone deaf, and I’d caused three singing teachers at RADA to seek Psychiatric help.


Barney immediately gave me a telephone number and said, “Call her, she’s expecting you to call, she definitely can help.”

I called the lady, Irene Frangs, as soon as I got back to my flat in Yeoville.

In the phone call it was arranged that I should pop by her house on Jan Smuts Avenue at three o’clock that Sunday afternoon. I immediately gave her the full run down about my aversion to singing and my inability to hold a tune; I even told how three teachers at RADA had not managed to be successful.

Irene seemed to not hear what I said and asked, “You’re British ja?” This coming from a very large red-haired lady with Greek ancestry was odd.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Recognise this?” as her fingers rippled across the grand piano with the opening chords of the “God save the Queen”.

“Call it an anthem to your character, So, come on belt it out!”

And I did. She helped me along and after we’d done it four times she asked, “Know any other songs?”

“Yep, I had to sing it in a play, The Cuban Missile Crisis, last year back in the UK, I did for Prospect Theatre Company; I played Lee Marvin and had to sing “I was born under a Wandering Star” same way as Lee did.”

The chords played out and off I went and even amazed myself. At the end Irene stood and applauded. “Right Cess, I won’t hear another word about being tone deaf and not being able to sing we’ll have you doing opera next week!” For the next four weeks I visited Irene twice weekly, on Sundays and in the afternoon on Wednesdays.

She adapted the song into Sprechgesang, so that I wouldn’t have to sing but rather speak, as I progressed I found myself naturally hitting the right notes and the dance routine I devised gave the whole drag act a very humourous sexual slant.

For those of you that don’t know the song I’ve downloaded a video of Bessie Lee singing and have given you the lyrics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZVD8QqNoak

The venue, The Nunnery was very small, but Barney designed a set with the help of Sarah Roberts who also designed the costumes, and selected my very own slinky Drag dress and high heels.

There was raked seating at each end of the oblong hall, in the central area they constructed a cell out of scaffolding; there was one metal door with a spy window through which Nigel could peer through and make sure his prisoners were behaving themselves.

This gave the sense of a very uncomfortable enclosed space. Four bunk beds were attached to the structure at different heights; they were also made of scaffolding with wooden boards and straw mattresses.

Seats for the audience were also available just under the lighting rig, here they sat on boards laid on the scaffolding with their legs dangling into the upper reaches of the cell.

It worked fantastically well, and one hundred and twenty-five patrons made a full-house; some members of the public made a second visit to see the play solely because they wanted to sit in the scaffolding.

We had five weeks of rehearsal working eight to ten hours each day including Saturdays. The get-in weekend was a frantic and hectic time. Mannie Manim designed the lighting, it was very difficult for him as he had to light from all sides of the venue and from above as well. This caused problems for us actors, as we had to constantly aware of casting shadows on each other.

The show received rave reviews from all the newspaper critics and my dragged rendition of “A good man is hard to find” received its own round of cheers and applause.

We played to full houses for six weeks, and if I remember correctly we had a two-week extension. There was talk, when it was discovered that The Nunnery had another production booked in, to find another venue.


Unfortunately, there was not another small venue available, and both Barney and Mannie knew that we would lose that special undefinable effect that The Nunnery had.

So, the production closed.

It hit the headlines again later in the year in all the Johannesburg newspapers, when Paul Slabolepszy won the best actor of the year, the production the best production award and Barney was nominated for the best director; he may even have won it, but my ageing grey matter’s hard drive can not retrieve the information.

Paul went on to even greater things and during the eighties till the present day he has become one of South Africa's playwrights winning numerous awards.

I can however give you the lyrics to Bessie Smith’s song and the text of Shakespeare’s sonnet 29.

A good man is hard to find,
You always get the other kind

A good man is hard to find,
You always get the other kind
Just when you think that he's your pal,
You look for him and find
Him fooling around some other gal
Then you rave,
You even pray,
To see him laying in his grave
So if your man is nice,
You better take my advice
Hug him in the morning,
Kiss him every night,
Give him plenty loving,
Treat him right
Cause a good man now day's is hard to find

So if your man is nice,
You better take my advice
And hug him in the morning,
Kiss him every night,
Give him plenty loving,
And treat him right
For a good man now day's is hard to find

SONNET 29

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.






PS: Now you've read this post, I would like you to comment on it. Say what you really think please. If you read any of the previous tales the same applies. It will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.