Friday 20th August
Yeah well, what was it some apprentice country bumpkin said about Plans?
The Eskom Ditch began to feel as though I was challenging Ferdinand de Lesseps shovel for shovel. Eventually I decided to do a few meters each day as vigorous exercise, which meant that some days I was working in gumboots and Drizabone in squalling rain, since the weather was very unsettled. Temperatures were down to 5 or 6 degrees at night in the cabin at Steve’s.
I managed to finish filling in the ditch and get one wall of my own cabin panelled before setting out for the hustle and bustle of Cape Town on Saturday morning 14th August, since pals Joe and Vi had booked tickets for Sir Iain Mckellan’s “Waiting For Godot” at the new Fugard Theatre.
Joe had landed a role in one of the first Commercials of “The Season”, so Vi and I had a rare opportunity to chat over a long late lunch on Kloof Street. The impending arrival of the baby raises all sorts of questions involving balancing one’s own beliefs, values and culture with those of family, friends and society at large. Add to that the impossibility of accurately predicting the world one’s child will grow up in and there’s a lot to mull over and discuss… Poor Joe kept us up to date on his personal purgatory at the hands of a “humdinger-folk-singer-trendoid” young woman Director from Joburg – when he wasn’t left rooted to the same spot in the studio for hours for no good reason. He arrived home just as we had to leave for the Theatre, but was in no state to sit through several hours of only slightly more absurd theatre. Casting Director Mito Skellern skidded through a shower on her way out of Yoga class and managed to join us just as the lights went down.
I’d love to know more about the history of the building / buildings which have now become the Fugard Theatre…. modern concrete, wood, glass and steel have been fitted into the exposed stone and brick of a Church and a warehouse. We sat on Level 2, a mezzanine level with bar stools running around four sides of the stage. It felt a little like The Globe Theatre in London.
One of our party, Mark Sykes, (The London lunch date in “Beyond Words”) has recently settled in South Africa. He was particularly astounded by Matthew Kelly’s performance as Pozzo, since he has known him for years as a rather camp over the top presenter of silly game shows on English television. We all have to pay the rent somehow…
What a pleasure to see accomplished English thespians toss Beckett’s convoluted firecracker words trippingly off the tongue! Not just the words – Director Sean Mathias and the actors have adopted a style of movement which adds subtly to the awkwardness of the characters wading through their puzzling, absurd lives. A “bluntness” to McKellen’s hands, which never seem to open fully, joints which never quite straighten, a lop-sided walk that isn’t quite a limp – none of this is at all obvious or mannered and I’d wager that most “ordinary” people in the audience would be hard-pressed to see the cogs going around – which is as it should be. The production was testimony to the old-fashioned thoroughness of English Theatrical training and “The Body As Instrument”.
Sir Ian made a little thank you speech after the curtain call, in which we learned that we had seen the very last performance of this production, which started in the West End and has since travelled to Australia and New Zealand before coming to Cape Town. Marvellous and worth every kilometre of the journey – thank you Joe!
Joe had rested body and soul by the time we got home, so when Vianne had gone to bed we started our traditional all-night chat session. Actually it’s more than chat – a kind of mental gymnastic session which allows us to release some of the considerable noise in our minds, skittering from topic to topic, problem to problem.
Awoke on Sunday in time to return Joe’s hire car and then on to a substantial breakfast in Kloof street before I set out for Wellington to see Christopher, Marleen and Tayla. Chris is clearing out the garage, and had offered me some unwanted gum poles and some barely used ceiling board (from the background in his old photo studio). Very useful for the solar heater tower and lining more of the cabin at Boggy Pond. Unfortunately, by the time we had threaded several large gum poles and a dismantled bunk-bed through the canopy window into the double cab, we had to leave the ceiling board behind on Monday morning. Perhaps a good excuse for another trip through the beautiful Franschoek valley, the mountain pass and along the Theewaterskloof dam on the way back to Caledon and Tessies.
In late August or early September, the area is carpeted in Canola blossom
While I was away even more Canola fields had come into bloom, turning the Overberg plains into a heart-stopping oil-painting of bright green and brilliant yellow framed by Pierneef purple mountains.
Every time I drive around the Cape Province I realise how much more at peace I am here. Sure, you can’t eat scenery, as they say, but you certainly feel better about being hungry!
For the rest of the week, it was worrying away at the pile of timber crammed into the cabin. At times it was as if every piece of lumber and board in the room conspired with my tools and the extension cord to thwart my efforts. Packets of nails would scurry out of reach just as I had balanced a heavy board in position, then the hammer would hide behind the toilet pan – which persisted in sitting solidly in the way for the first few days and had to be heaved into a different corner every few minutes, so progress was slow until I had used up some of the timber. Even then, just nailing the board into place was tedious, since the I had to use a heavy sledgehammer as a deadweight to nail against when putting the clouts in every few centimetres. I became reasonably good at left-handed nailing while hefting a 10Kg sledgehammer with my right hand at full stretch!