duskant sutherland

‘n Mens kan gerus met ‘n breë smile ‘n pluimpie aan die nuwe Afrikaanse Facebookkoppelvlak toedig.

Is ek toe nou vanmore drie keer “geknyp”, waarna ek twee daarvan beantwoord het met ‘n lekker “por”!
Ditsem, ek hou daarvan!

Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger
10 Oktober, 1825 – 14 Julie, 1904

Geluk oom, nou kan dit donder…

‘n Paar maande gelede gesels Coenie de Villiers op die KykNet gespreksprogram Kwela met Deon Opperman,  bekroonde skrywer en vervaardiger, oor sy pas voltooide MBA. Een Opperman sin bly my by (en ek parafraseer): “Ek is ‘n harde werker, jy weet en het uitstekend in my MBA gevaar, ek is nie van daardie mense wat in koffiewinkels rondhang nie, ek het te veel ambisie en dryf omdat ek doelgerig is, ek kan lui mense nie verdra nie”. Wat my aan hierdie opmerking laat dink het, was ‘n ewe gewigtige verwysing na Mnr. Opperman en Sean Else se blyspel, “Ons vir Jou” waar eergenoemde op Carte Blanche oor die verhoogstuk verklaar het: “You know, it’s on the scale of Les Misérables – it’s big.”

Maskas né!

Nouja, Opperman se flagrante en duidelik genoegsame selfvertroue (lees: windgatgeit) daaraan toe, was ek -bietjie krities - ’n indrukwekkende skouspel tewagte toe ek die afgelope naweek na die statige Staatsteater se Opera gaan om die laaste vertoning van bogenoemde musiekblyspel te gaan kyk. Dit, en die imposante agtergrondteks wat op die Packed House Productions-webwerf verskyn:

“Hier kom ‘n ding!  Eers was dit ‘n liedjie…nou is dit ‘n hele storie…’n groot storie met ‘n begroting van R4 miljoen…ONS VIR JOU – die eerste Boereoorlog musiekblyspel in die geskiedenis van Suid-Afrikaanse teater geskryf deur Herzogprys-wenner Deon Opperman en Sean Else met musiek deur Johan Vorster…[ ]…en dis alles daar – die heldedade, die liefdesverhale, die slagvelde en natuurlik die aserowende musiek: solo’s, ballades, koorsang, de lot…[ ]…Met Rouel Beukes as Generaal Koos de la Rey, Michelle Botha as sy vrou, Nonnie de la Rey, Adrian Poulsen as De La Rey se seun, Adaan, Paul Lückhoff as Paul Kruger, Neels Coetzee as Siener van Rensburg, David Clatworthy as Lord Alfred Milner en Peter Taylor as Lord Methuen, om maar ‘n paar te noem…[ ]…Hulle het geskiedenis gemaak…nou maak ons dit weer.”

En ou oom Dan Roodt voeg ook sy stuiwer by wanneer hy groots verklaar: 
“…oortref dit lag-lag enige Broadway of West End-produksie.”

Maskas, sê ek weer. En dis nou net hier waar die opskrif van hierdie inskrywing ter sprake kom…Nie net bevat Ons vir Jou duidelik verskeie lae van betekenis nie, maar na my mening is die produksie met sy sewe-getal begroting ook iets van ‘n egomassering – maar later meer daaroor. Dit vertel die verhaal van liefde, heldemoed, opoffering en geloof, alles binne die konteks van die Anglo-Boereoorlog wat die Boererepublieke in die jare 1899 – 1902 geteister het. In sy diepste is Ons vir Jou ‘n sepie wat binne die konteks van hierdie bekende en emosie-belaaide geskiedenis afspeel. En dis nie ‘n slegte ding nie, inteendeel, ek hou daarvan dat ons “boerehelde” so bietjie vermenslik word deur te wys dat hulle ook maar deur die gewone aksies van dag-tot-dag bestaan gegaan het. Daarby sorg die stuk vir asemrowende verhoogtonele, uitstekende musiek en roerende momente – alles verpak in ‘n uiters professionele en verbruikersvriendelike blyspel.

Maar op verskeie vlakke is dit ‘n produksie van teenstellings en ongebalanseerde rolmaal. Juis in terme van rolverdeling oorskadu Rouel Beukes se ongelooflike vertolking van Koos de la Rey die ander akteurs en laat hy hulle na die tipiese 7de Laan Oppiekoffie-kelner-akteurs lyk. Daarby laat sy sang bv. dié van De la Rey se seun Adam (Adrian Poulsen) en trawante, soos boyband sangers klink en word ‘n mens weereens bewus van die belangrikheid van kontinïuteit in stemverdelings. Dit is dan onafwendbaar dat die verhoogstuk duidelik veels te swaar op Beukes leun om die karakterdinamiek aan die gang te hou en meer as een maal het ek die gevoel gekry dat ek na ‘n eenman-stuk kyk.

Foto: Packed House Productions

Die musiek en orkestrasie is uitstekend en duursaam. Daar is wel ’n paar ”filler” items wat dit duidelik nie buite die veilige skanse van “De la Rey” en ”Ons vir Jou” se populariteit sal maak nie. Hierdie items, wat ek sommer “kontinïuteitsitems” noem, sowel as die nuwe Steve Hofmeyer en Bok van Blerk treffer “Pa en Seun”, wat deur Genl. De la Rey (Beukes) gesing word, sneuwel grootliks aan die hand van geforseerde, nikseggende, paargerymde lirieke. En dit is jammer, want hierdie items staan in skrille kontras met hoendervel-oomblikke waar die majestueuse orkesmusiek rondom jou en binne jou bulder.

In onlangse resensies was verskeie geskiedenispuriste omgekrap oor ”verdraaide feite” in die storielyn en veral die stukkie fiksie wat rondom die dood van Adam, Genl. De la Rey se seun, bygewerk is het die wenkbroue gelig. Ek vermoed dat hierdie kritiek ongegrond is omdat daar geensins gesuggereer word dat Ons vir Jou ‘n dokumentêr is nie. Inteendeel, die storielyn bevat, soos reeds gesê, al die bestandele van ‘n deursnee sepie met voorspelbare wendings en ‘n paar nat-sneusdoekie oomblikke. Tog is daar ‘n paar slim karaktertoepassings in die storielyn, soos Siener van Rensburg (gespeel deur Neels Coetzee) wat aan die begin ‘n treffende verband tussen verlede en hede trek deur die gehoor direk aan te spreek met die woorde:

“Ek sien julle . . . hier waar julle sit, honderd jaar van waar ek nou sit . . . en julle het klaar gesien wat ek gesien het . . . wat ek self nie wou glo toe ek dit gesien het nie . . . ’n volk gedruk tot die randjie van ’n afgrond . . . ”

Nouja, terug dan na die titel van hierdie inskrywing…Ek het Ons vir Jou geniet, alhoewel ek geensins kan oordryf deur dit te vergelyk met ‘n produksie soos Les Misérables nie. Inteendeel, so ‘n analogie is verwaand en kom myns insiens, neer op ‘n ego-defensief waar Opperman en kie die waarde van hierdie produksie dalk klein bietjie oorskat het en propaganda vir die stuk daarvolgens aangepak is. Wat ek eintlik sê is dat daar ‘n laaste teenstelling lê in die vervaardiger se grootheidsoortuiging van sy produksie, en dit wat op die verhoog materialiseer.

Ons vir Jou is aan te bevele. Dit is heerlike vermaak wat trots Suid-Afrikaans en trots Afrikaans uitrys bo oppervlakkige politieke ondertone en geïmpliseerde boodskappe, om ’n mooi storie te vertel. Dit gee op waardige, maar soms onderbenutte wyse gestalte aan ‘n seer stukkie geskiedenis wat vir elkeen van ons iets beteken. Doen gerus moeite met hierdie een…

Ek lees die volgende verhaal vanoggend op die News24 webwerf. Dit is een van die mees aangrypende stories wat ek al gehoor het – doen gerus moeite en lees dit.

An unbelievable love story

In the beginning, there was a boy, a girl and an apple.

He was a teenager in a death camp in Nazi-controlled Germany. She was a bit younger, living free in the village, her family posing as Christians. Their eyes met through a barbed-wire fence and she wondered what she could do for this handsome young man.  She was carrying apples, and decided to throw one over the fence. He caught it and ran away toward the barracks. And so it began.  As they tell it, they returned the following day and she tossed an apple again. And each day after that, for months, the routine continued. She threw, he caught, and both scurried away.

They never knew one another’s name, never uttered a single word, so fearful they’d be spotted by a guard. Until one day he came to the fence and told her he wouldn’t be back. “I won’t see you anymore,” she said. “Right, right. Don’t come around anymore,” he answered. And so their brief and innocent tryst came to an end. Or so they thought. Before he was shipped off to a death camp, before the girl with the apples appeared, Herman Rosenblat’s life had already changed forever.

I want to be with you

His family had been forced from their home into a ghetto. His father fell ill with typhus. They smuggled a doctor in, but there was little he could do to help. The man knew what was coming. He summoned his youngest son. “If you ever get out of this war,” Rosenblat remembers him saying, “don’t carry a grudge in your heart and tolerate everybody”. Two days later, the father was dead. Herman was just 12.

The family was moved again, this time to a ghetto where he shared a single room with his mother, three brothers, uncle, aunt and four cousins. He and his brothers got working papers and he got a factory job painting stretchers for the Germans. Eventually, the ghetto was dissolved. As the Poles were ushered out, two lines formed. In one, those with working papers, including Rosenblat and his brothers. In the other, everyone else, including the boys’ mother. Rosenblat went over to his mother. “I want to be with you,” he cried. She spoke harshly to him and one of his brothers pulled him away. His heart was broken. “I was destroyed,” Rosenblat remembers. It was the last time he would ever see her. It was in Schlieben, Germany, that Rosenblat and the girl he later called his angel would meet. Roma Radziki worked on a nearby farm and the boy caught her eye. And bringing him food – apples, mostly, but bread, too -became part of her routine. “Every day,” she says, “every day I went.”

Their daily ritual faded from their minds

Rosenblat says he would secretly eat the apples and never mentioned a word of it to anyone else for fear word would spread and he’d be punished or even killed. When Rosenblat learned he would be moved again – this time to Theresienstadt, in what is now the Czech Republic – he told the girl he would not return. Not long after, the Russians rolled in on a tank and liberated Rosenblat’s camp. The war was over. She went to nursing school in Israel. He went to London and learned to be an electrician. Their daily ritual faded from their minds.

“I forgot,” she says.

“I forgot about her, too,” he recalls.

Rosenblat eventually moved to New York. He was running a television repair shop when a friend phoned him one Sunday afternoon and said he wanted to fix him up with a girl. Rosenblat was unenthusiastic: He didn’t like blind dates, he told his friend. He didn’t know what she would look like. But finally, he relented.  It went well enough. She was Polish and easygoing. Conversation flowed, and eventually talk turned to their wartime experiences. Rosenblat recited the litany of camps he had been in, and Radziki’s ears perked up. She had been in Schlieben, too, hiding from the Nazis. She spoke of a boy she would visit, of the apples she would bring, how he was sent away.

That was me

And then, the words that would change their lives forever: “That was me,” he said.

Rosenblat knew he could never leave this woman again. He proposed marriage that very night. She thought he was crazy. Two months later she said yes. In 1958, they were married at a synagogue in the Bronx – a world away from their sorrows, more than a decade after they had thought they were separated forever. It all seems too remarkable to be believed. Rosenblat insists it is all true. Even after their engagement, the couple kept the story mostly to themselves, telling only those closest to them. Herman says it’s because they met at a point in his life he’d rather forget. But eventually, he said, he felt the need to share it with others.

Now, the Rosenblats’ story has inspired a children’s book, Angel Girl. And eventually, there are plans to turn it into a film, The Flower of the Fence. Herman expects to publish his memoirs next year. Michael Berenbaum, a distinguished Holocaust scholar who has authored a dozen books, has read Rosenblatt’s memoir and sees no reason to question it. ”I wasn’t born then so I can’t say I was an eyewitness. But it’s credible,” Berenbaum said. “Crazier things have happened.” Herman is now 79, and Roma is three years his junior; they celebrated their 50th anniversary this summer. He often tells their story to Jewish and other groups. He believes the lesson is the very one his father imparted. “Not to hate and to love – that’s what I am lecturing about,” he said. “Not to hold a grudge and to tolerate everybody, to love people, to be tolerant of people, no matter who they are or what they are.”

The anger of the death camps, Herman says, has gone away. He forgave. And his life has been filled with love.

Herman & Roma Rosenblat  

UPDATE: Lees die interessante kommentaar op hierdie inskrywing deur Dan Bloom – asook by die volgende skakel

Aan my geliefde Blou Bulle, gaan doen die ding en doen hom goed!

NS – Brian, druk hom weer soos in die foto hierbo hoor!

NOUUUUU DIE BLOUUUUUUU!!!!!