KNYSNA NEWS - The award-winning play Delwersdorp, staged at the Hornlee Civic Centre last Saturday, drew gasps of amazement from an attentive audience, interspersed with shouts of "Oh, no".
The play, written by Michaela Whaites, is set in a small town near the Witwatersrand soon after the start of the apartheid era, and centres on the characters Ouma, a grandmother, her daughter, Saloami, the daughter's teenage sons, Willem and Pieter, and Maud, a girl who both the sons are in love with.
In the Knysna production, directed by Nadeem Jeftha, Ouma was played by Marveen Charles of Knysna, and Plettenberg Bay actors Jameline Whaites, Aidon Boli, Heirich Pienaar and Jaydene September, played Saloami, Willem the older brother, Pieter and Maud.
Hides death
In the play, Saloami hides the death of her husband, Jacobus, from her family, and from herself. She refuses to accept his death.
Jacobus had left home to work on a gold mine, and two years after his departure, Saloami receives a letter from the mine saying he died in an explosion.
For many years thereafter she writes letters to her husband and makes as if she posts them. She puts the letters in a box.
Tragedy unfolds
Over the years, in Jacobus' absence, tension builds between the family members, with Maud, also living in difficult circumstances, drawing Ouma's ire when she asks for assistance.
Tragedy unfolds after an inspector enforcing the Group Areas Act asks Ouma for the title deed to the family home. Ouma, who cannot read, tries to find the document, and asks Pieter to help.
She accidentally hands Pieter the letter, taken from Saloami's box, that the mine sent, telling Saloami of Jacobus' death.
After confronting his mother over the deceit, Pieter storms off and finds Willem, who announces his plan to work on a mine, now that an opening has come up, fulfilling the town's tradition of older brothers leaving home first for mines.
Romantic rivalry
The deceit, imminent departure of Willem, and the romantic rivalry between the brothers, leads to a fight between them.
Willem is paralysed from the neck down. After this catastrophe, Pieter himself makes plans to become a miner.
The successful production was staged to raise funds for the Pentecostal Protestant Church in Hornlee, to enable it to put a roof on its revamped building, also to be used as a community centre.
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