Barbie brings Bosman back on stage
IF you missed the first two full-house shows of Barbie Meyer’s latest Herman Charles Bosman adaptation, ‘Bosman in the Gallows’ on the South Coast earlier this year you will be pleased that it will soon be back on stage.
Barbie Meyer has agreed to do two follow-up performances of this compilation of these sad but funny Bosman stories at Riverbend Conference Centre on July 25 and 26, at 6.30pm for 7pm. Compiled and performed by Barbie, this show is directed by Bets Basson and Marke Meyer. It is based on Bosman’s book, ‘Cold Stone Jug’ and is Barbie’s sixth play based on this famous author’s work.
“Everyone loves a good story and no one wrote them quite as beautifully, insightfully and downright hilariously as Bosman. And whether you are well versed in his work, or a newcomer, you will find his writing is incredible. It appeals to everyone on a very human and comical level,” said Barbie.
In this performance, as with her previous shows, Barbie has been able to bring to life a balanced and highly palatable piece of theatre filled with a variety of rough and ready characters ranging from mangy inmates on death row to a warder showing off his dance skills in socks that are ‘more hole than sock’. Barbie also couldn’t resist adding just one of Bosman’s much-loved Oom Schalk stories to the programme.
Bosman was a South African writer and journalist who became famous for capturing the rhythms of backveld Afrikaans speech even though he wrote in English. He is widely regarded as the greatest short story writer to come out of this country. His books are some of the finest in the field of South African literature.
After seeing Patrick Mynhardt transformed into Oom Schalk on the stage and hearing him tell Bosman’s intrinsically South African short stories, Barbie Meyer never quite saw the world in the same way again.
“Quite simply I was hooked from an early age,” she laughed.
As a young teacher, Herman Charles Bosman was sent to teach in the Marico district. After about six months, he returned to his mother’s home in Johannesburg for the holidays. That night, his brother and stepbrother were fighting in their bedroom. In a fit of rage Herman fired his hunting rifle at his stepbrother – whom he later claimed he thought was an intruder – and killed him. He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by hanging.
He was 21 years old.
Later, a reprieve was granted and his sentence was reduced to a term of imprisonment with hard labour.
The thought-provoking but funny ‘Cold Stone Jug’ was a result of his prison experiences. This book is now widely considered the founding text of all South African prison writings. It is a book filled with pathos and grit and yet it is always written with his unfailing humour and unmistakable high courage and wit.
