EVITA FOR PRESIDENT. To 1 September.

London

EVITA FOR PRESIDENT
by Pieter-Dirk Uys.

Tricycle Theatre To 1 September 2007.
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Sat 4pm.
Runs 1hr 55min One interval.

TICKETS: 020 7328 1000.
www.tricycle.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 7 August.

Why children matter in a 13-year old democracy.
Pieter-Dirk Uys claims he doesn’t pay taxes, but royalties, since South Africa’s politicians provide him with so much material. Uys (‘Ace’), longtime satirical thorn in the side of apartheid South Africa, continues pointing out failings in politicians today; amnesiac Whites who held power but never knew what was going on, or Black politicians who let the “rainbow nation” down, come equally into his sights. Yet hope for South Africa underlies all his mockery.

It’s unsurprising he’s brought his latest one-person, multi-impersonation show to London. There are, he points out, many white South Africans here nowadays – those not running security in Iraq. As he says at the curtain-call, he can hear his fellow-countryfolk in the audience.

It means, though, that many jokes and references bypass anyone not intimate with new South African society. This localises laughter in the audience, but it’s right. A bland internationalised version would draw the barbs, as his sprinkling of easy-criticism comments on Blair and Brown makes clear.

More seriously, Evita, the humourless White, right-winger doesn’t really live up to her star-status. Behind the cosmetics, wig and dress is the same Uys voice, in pace and tone. And as Evita Bezuidenhout’s (‘bez–ay-den-hoot’) views have been foreshadowed there’s little room for surprises, despite the promising idea of her dialogue with a puppet Thabo Mbeki.

But the previous transformations of features, movement, posture and voice are startling. Uys’s benign features are barely discernible in the sharply-defined gruffness, cheer or confidence of the South Africans he recreates. They include White politicians, one lecturing on how to be acting-president with some of the evening’s sharpest political comment, a junk-shop owning neighbour and the local Big Issue seller with answers to everything.

Then, showing satire can have a heart, there’s his strong belief in the nation’s children, now saved from AIDS in greater numbers (though the disease kills 1,000 South Africans every day), yet still at danger from drugs. Hear the story of a nervous child encouraged to sing, or the Black girl who couldn’t understand the concept of a “Whites Only” park-bench and it’s clear why Uys, and Evita, matter.

Cast: Pieter-Dirk Uys.
Presidential puppet: Nicholas de Klerk.
Costume: Francois Vedemme.

2007-08-09 01:13:39