Text and Context

N is vir Neurose debuted at the US Woordfees in 2012. Written and directed by Christiaan

Olwagen, the play featured Fleur Du Cap winners Hannah Borthwick and Wessel Pretorius as well as Roeline Daneel and Mariechen Vosloo. It was part of the first trio24 _of

productions from the then unknown Polony Theatre Collective, who introduced themselves as: “Polonie. Die kleinniggie van salami, die boetie van boerewors en die vriend van die Weense worsie” (Malan 2012: Online). Polony consisted of the above-mentioned artists as well as Cintaine Schutte,25 _{De Klerk Oelofse,}26 _{Greta Pietersen,}27 _{Ludwig Binge,}28 _Kelly- Eve Koopman and Roxanne Bain, all graduates from Stellenbosch University Drama Department (Malan 2012: Online).

Since 2012 the Polony Collective has grown and created many successful and controversial productions on the festival circuit. According to Malan, the collective originated from a group of like-minded students who wanted to create theatre that they would enjoy seeing themselves. They recognised the importance of peer-to-peer

recognition within drama and as such made relatable theatre with a comic undercurrent that grew in popularity year by year. In Malan’s article, Schutte describes their style as “Spoeg-en-plak-teater. Ons wil relevante teater maak.” Their name came from the idea

24 _{The other two productions at that year’s Woordfees being Wessel Pretorius’ one man show Ont and an} adaptation of the Christoper Durang play Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You.

25 _{Fleur du Cap winner for best supporting actress in a play for her role as Masja in Die Seemeeu in 2016.} 26 _{Nominated in 2016 for best actor in a musical for Liewe Heksie: Flower Power.}

27 _{Winner of the 2016 Kyknet Fiësta award for best supporting actress for Son. Maan. Sterre.} 28 _{Winner of the 2016 Silwerskermfees award for best supporting actor for Johnny is nie Dood nie.}

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that polony is the most postmodern food available “ʼn mengsel van ʼn klomp bestanddele, wie weet wat alles” (Malan 2012: Online).29

N is vir Neurose was very well received at the US Woordfees and word of mouth started

spreading about the fresh approach to comedy that speaks directly to twenty-somethings (and beyond). Its debut venue was the Klein Libertas Theatre in Stellenbosch, which could seat around 100 audience members. This intimate theatre had always been a platform for up-and-coming artists, with many school and university drama competitions presented there. In terms of the festival space, the Aan de Braak Venue had been the experimental performance space, while the Klein Libertas Theatre was highly sought after because of its intimate nature and excellent infrastructure. For N is vir Neurose it provided the perfect combination of being a popular venue on the festival circuit that would give the production exposure, as well as being a small enough space to draw the audience into the

claustrophobic living room which is the setting for the play.

Bain and Hauptfleisch (2001: 15) say that festival productions have had to adhere to certain conventions in order to stay profitable. N is vir Neurose plays it safe with very basic technical requirements and a small, contained cast. Considering that this was one of the earlier Polony festival plays it makes sense that the festival setting would have had an influence on its conception.

With regards to the process followed with N is vir Neurose, a group-work ethic was already intact. Originally they wanted to do a translation of a famous American comedy for the 2012 festival circuit, but with copyright administration and other constraints Saartjie Botha, drama coordinator of Woordfees at the time, encouraged them to write an original piece

29 _{Since first accessing this link in 2015, Netwerk 24 has become a paid subscription service, the central point for} all major Afrikaans news publications online. Because of this, the link given in the reference will no longer work.

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(Meyer 2012: Online). Olwagen had had some experience in writing at this stage and gladly took on the task. The production of the play fell on everyone and, as Daneel explains the process for Litnet:

Ons is almal oudstudente van die Universiteit Stellenbosch se dramadepartement wat intussen Kaapstad toe getrek het. Ons is vriende wat gereeld kuier (ek en Hannah is selfs woonstelmaats) en mekaar se werk ondersteun. Ons reken toe ons kan net sowel ʼn projek saam aanpak. Almal dra dieselfde finansiële risiko en alle take, van rekwisiete opspoor tot bemarking doen tot plakkate opsit, word gelyk verdeel (Meyer 2012: Online).

As we will see with Amper, Vrystaat, this collaborative approach to all aspects of the production seems to be the most realistic way for young theatre makers to create an original work over which they all have ownership. In doing this, the plays naturally become more personal. By grounding the comedy in their own personal experiences, the writers are able to foreground the comedic truth that Aristotle wrote about, and thus the audience is more likely to recognise the norm within an absurd situation. Borthwick, 25 years old at the time of the debut of N is vir Neurose, said in a 2012 interview that the play deals with issues and feelings that she herself was still dealing with at the time, “something you can’t put your finger on, it’s a lost feeling, kind of a downer, a restlessness. I’m still trying to get the hang of it. I ask myself: ‘Is this it? Must I settle, must I get married?’”(George 2012: Online).This direct relation between the actors and the characters gives the play a verisimilitude that helps with the recognition of truth within the comedy.

With sold out performances, N is vir Neurose went on to be part of the Fees van die Uitverkooptes, which featured the most popular shows of that year’s Woordfees at the Baxter Golden Arrow Studio and the Klein Libertas Theatre in May 2012 (George 2012:

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Online). In that year N is vir Neurose would go on to play at Aardklop and KKNK. At the 2013 Kyknet Fiësta awards N is vir Neurose was nominated in four categories and the play enjoyed wide coverage when a scene was performed during the live national broadcast. 30 The production was nominated in the following categories: Best Supporting Actor for Wessel Pretorius, Best Supporting actress for Hannah Borthwick, while the director, Christiaan Olwagen, was nominated for Best New Afrikaans Performance and Best Emerging Artist (Nominations 2013: Online). Even though ONT, by Wessel Pretorius of Polony, was the big winner on the night, there is no denying the success of N is vir

Neurose, especially when considering that all of this success stemmed from the theatre

collective’s first attempt at the festival circuit. 2012 pushed the Polony Theatre Collective into the limelight and all the festivals wanted this emerging group of individuals on their programme.31

Despite all the critical acclaim and large audiences for this play, in five years it has

become quite a task to find concrete information on the production, let alone a final script. When inquiring about the text, I received the very first draft of the script from Borthwick. This was the original script that went into rehearsal with the cast and has since then been changed immensely. After some effort, I managed to find the latest version of the script, which had merely been updated for the technical crew of the festival. Daneel, who had been doing most of the festival administration, had this version of the script. At the bottom of the front page it states: “Let wel: Hierdie teks is min of meer gemaak en laat staan soos hy geskryf is, so verskoon asseblief enige spel- en tikfoute want amper sekerlik nog daar is”. As Balme stated, the theatrical text is the consistent and the performance the variable

30 _{At the 2013 Fiësta Awards, the cast would perform a scene from the play in the very large State Theatre in} Pretoria, mirroring the collective’s journey so far from the obscure at the small Klein Libertas Theatre to popularity at the national level.

31 _{Six years later it seems that the young collective has become quieter on the theatre front, though still working} together on various projects. Olwagen and most of the original Polony Collective have started working together making films, adapting plays into screen texts like Malan Steyn’s Johnny is nie Dood nie (2015), as well as Anton Chekov’s Die Seemeeu (scheduled for release in 2018).

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(2008: 133). Here we see a script that might still be in a process of editing, and as such gives the actors the freedom to settle the dialogue into natural speech. This means that in the already varying state of the performances, the text also becomes less rigid. This script, left as is, has been added as ADDENDUM A to this study with permission from the author for future use by researchers and practitioners alike. Examples will be quoted as is from this text, with spelling mistakes and other irregularities included. The reason for this is to retain the authenticity of these unpublished plays, the raw texts which are the basis to work from – the words, before the actors create the worlds.