Mother City News 25 June - 24 July 2020

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WARNING: May contain strong language

JUNE 25 - JULY 24, 2020

Breaking the echo chamber in the city bowl and beyond.

Women in danger turned away by courts Court tells woman to come back another day, protection order takes days to process Steve Kretzmann

Within days of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s national address on the scourge of violence meted out by men on children, and the women who care for them, women seeking protection from violence and abuse have struggled to get help from courts in Cape Town.

The Public Protector is investigating whether Altecia Kortjie and her seven-yearold daughter Raynecia were turned away from the Bellville Magistrate’s Courts days before being found stabbed to death.

When the investigation is expected to be finalised is uncertain, said Public Protector spokesperson Oupa Segalwe.

According to an EWN news report by Jarita Kassen, Altecia and Raynecia’s bodies were found in Belhar in Friday 12 June. Altecia Kortjie, from Delft, was 27-years-old. She and Raynecia had reportedly gone missing that Tuesday 9 June.

It is reported that Ryan Smith, 28, who was known to them, has been arrested.

There have been a slew of fatal attacks on women by men this month, with President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his address to the nation on 17 June, saying 21 women and children had been killed by men in “the last few weeks”.

Ramaphosa said: “I want to assure the women and children of South Africa that our criminal justice system will remain focused on gender-based violence cases and that we can expect more arrests and more prosecutions against perpetrators to follow.”

Yet in the same week, an established Cape Town advocate and senior litigation attorney had to spend days in efforts to obtain a protection order for a woman being abused in a case of gender based violence.

No shelter... While the Office of the Public Protector investigates whether Altecia Kortjie and her seven-year-old daugher Raynecia were turned away from the Bellville Magistrate’s Court before being murdered, an attorney has detailed his struggle to get courts to help another woman living in fear of her life. Photo: Steve Kretzmann

Experienced lawyers struggle to get help from courts Attorney Michael Dixon said that his counsel, advocate Deborah Watson, received a call from the director of the Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children on Friday 19 June, informing her that a survivor had been turned away by the domestic violence court at 11am that day.

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JUNE 25 - JULY 24, 2020

From Page 1

Serving people... Lucinda Evans, pictured here in the soup kitchen she has been running to feed hungry children in Lavender Hill and surrounds during lockdown, is director of Philisaa Abafazi Bethu, a non-profit organisation which runs a safe house for women. Evans says the organisation had been “inundated with calls” from women needing to escape abusive partners since alcohol was unbanned on June 1. Photo: Brenton Geach/ GroundUp.

Women in danger turned away by courts The centre requested pro bono assistance in obtaining a protection for the survivor, who had been housed in the shelter for abused woman for four months in January last year when she tried to escape abuse from her partner.

Dixon said the woman had again been the victim of two separate domestic violence incidents two days Watson received the call for help.

On both occasions, the woman had called the police. The first time, she had laid a charge of harassment with the Kensington Police, and a charge of assault on the second occasion. However, he said the police told her they could not help her unless she obtained a protection order from the court.

He said the woman had no mode of transport and no airtime, and was only contactable via WhatsApp. Dixon managed to track the survivor’s family down and arrange for her to leave immediately and go to a relative until a protection order was obtained. He said he managed to do this by about 5pm that evening. He then found there was no after-hours number accessible for the Cape Town Domestic Violence Court and arranged to consult with advocate Watson the following morning in order to bring an

urgent High Court Application to secure the woman’s safety.

Papers were drafted on Saturday Morning and submitted via email by midday at the instruction of the urgent High Court registrar. The woman remained with her relative, which was not ideal as the perpetrator knew where she stayed.

Further information was supplied by Dixon at the request of the judge on Saturday evening. Dixon’s article clerk, Egran Versveld, then, at the request of the registrar attended at court with the original papers over the weekend.

The protection order was only obtained at around lunchtime on Wednesday 24 June, five days after filing an urgent application at the High Court.

Surge in violence Lucinda Evans, director of Philisaa Abafazi Bethu, a non-profit organisation which runs a safe house for women, said the organisation had been “inundated with calls for an emergency safe space”.

Evans said the safe house, which has nine beds, has been full since alcohol was unbanned under lockdown rules on June 1.

Speaking on Tuesday, Evans said the

previous night a woman had tried to leave her three-month-old baby in the adoption drop box the organisation has for woman who cannot care for their newborn.

She said she was out at the time but her daughters heard the alarm and when they went out to collect the baby 15 minutes later, they found the mother still there as she was struggling to fit her baby in the drop box because, at three-months-old, he was too big to fit.

Her daughters calmed the mother and invited her in for tea. It was discovered that the mother, who had a black eye, did not want to give up her baby boy but was trying to do as she was afraid her partner was going to start hitting the baby.

She said as a result the Philisaa Abafazi Bethu safe house mother gave up her bed and accommodated the mother and child.

“We’ve seen a significant increase in women being abused since 1 June,” said Evans. She said this was the case at all shelters she was in contact with, and it coincided with alcohol being freely available again.

Scores of women murdered over ‘past few weeks’

Ramaphosa, in his 17 June address said that besides Covid-19, there is “another pandemic that is raging in our country – the killing of women and children by the men of our country.”

Ramaphosa said that as of 17 June, 21 women and children had been killed by men “in the past few weeks”.

He went on to name just a few of them: Tshegofatso Pule, Naledi Phangindawo, Nompumelelo Tshaka, Nomfazi Gabada, Nwabisa Mgwandela, Altecia Kortjie and Lindelwa Peni.

The brutality of these murders have been particularly shocking: Tshegofatso Pule was 28-years-old and eight-months pregnant.

She was found hanging from a tree in Roodepoort’s Durban Deep on 5 June, and had been stabbed in the chest.

Sibongiseni (Nomfazi) Gabada’s body was found stuffed inside a sports bag outside her boyfriend’s shack in Khayelitsha. She was 34-years-old.

Since the President’s speech, the naked body of an as-yet-unnamed 17-year-old girl was found in the street in Browns Farm, Philippi on 20 June.

Department of Justice concerned Spokesperson form the Department of Justice and Correctional Services Ministry, Chrispin Phiri, said the Ministry is concerned that there are number of complaints of this nature at Cape Town courts.

“Our legislative regime makes specific

provision for these type of remedies to be obtained from our courts so that women can find refuge from abusers,” stated Phiri.

He said it was unacceptable that “a citizen can be turned away when they seek help in our courts, this becomes

even more heightened where one seeks assistance from the courts for matters which relate to gender based violence”.

He said the Ministry has requested the Office of the Public Protector to assist in establishing how pervasive this problem is.

“It is the Ministys intention to use this report to ensure that officials who maybe implicated in this type of conduct account through for the failure to deliver services to citizens.”

JUNE 25 - JULY 24, 2020

Mother City News

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No high school places for thousands of Grade 7s

Gates of learning... Public high schools in Cape Town do not have enough places for this year’s Grade 7 pupils seeking to start Grade 8 next year. The shortfall between the number of pupils in Grade 7 this year and current Grade 8 places, is 2 504. Schools such as Wynberg Girls High, pictured, have to turn away hundreds of hopeful pupils and parents.

Steve Kretzmann Potentially thousands of Cape Town parents face the prospect of their child not being accepted into a public high school next year.

Earlier this month the Western Cape Department of Education (WCED) informed parents who had applied for their children to attend Grade 8 next year whether their applications to the various schools of their choice had been successful.

Yet even though parents had to submit applications for at least three schools by March 17, the statistics show that there is no place for at least 2 504 of these high school hopefuls.

Spokesperson to WCED minister Debbie Schäfer, Kerry Mauchline, stated there are 59 761 Grade 7 pupils currently finishing their last year of primary school in public schools within the Cape Town metropolitan districts this year, and only 57 257 Grade 8 pupils who will potentially make way for them as they move up to Grade 9 next year.

The situation in the province as a whole is 93 303 Grade 7s in public schools and 91 284 Grade 8s in public school pupils, leaving a potential provincial shortfall of 2 019 places.

Mauchline noted this did not take into account the number of pupils from other provinces who apply to Western Cape public schools.

She said the latest data from the department’s survey taken on the tenth day of the school year, was that there were 2 454 children in Grade 8 “who have not been registered at school in the Western Cape

before”.

The demand for high school places in Cape Town and the province is such that thousands of parents in Cape Town received notification that their child had not been granted a place in any of up to five schools they applied for, as all the schools were “over subscribed”.

One of these parents is Melissa Harris.

Harris, who is a primary school teacher living in Sunningdale, said she applied to four schools, yet her son did not receive a place at any of them. The reason in all cases was that the school was over subscribed.

She said this was despite her son’s current primary school being in the feeder area for two of the high schools.

She said her son is “an academic boy” and a sports enthusiast who not only participated in B-team sports but enthusiastically supported all the first team matches, and played a musical instrument.

“His primary school teachers and coaches are absolutely gobsmacked that he didn’t get in. It’s insane. Absolutely crazy.”

The effect of her son’s perceived rejection also had to be dealt with.

“We had this 12-year-old feeling like his marks weren’t good enough yet he gets over 80%. He feels he’s a failure at sports.”

Natalie Hiebner, a single mother living in Kenilworth, had a similar ordeal when she went through the high school application process last year. Hiebner’s son never received a place in a public high school for 2020. Instead, his godparents stepped and paid for him to attend a private Christian school.

Hiebner, who at the time did not own a

computer for online applications, did what she could by obtaining hard copies of the relevant forms and taking them to the schools. She managed to submit forms for three schools, including feeder schools for her son’s primary school. Her son was also not placed in any of the high schools, which are in the same area in which they live.

She said in February this year the WCED found her son a place in a Bo-Kaap school but after visiting it, she decided she could not send her son there. Beyond the quality of the school, she was not willing to abandon him to the daily journey from Kenilworth to Bo-Kaap on public transport, which is what he would have had to do as she had to go to work and did not own a car.

Although her son’s godparents came to the rescue, the cost of the private school is not sustainable and she continues trying to find him a public school for Grade 9 next year.

One principal at a popular Cape Town public high school, who asked not to be named as he was not authorised to talk to the press, said the school had received over 1 000 Grade 8 applications this year.

He said it was heartbreaking to turn away so many promising pupils but there was simply not enough space.

New online schools mooted Wynberg Boys High School and Wynberg Girls High School have sent notifications to parents whose applications were unsuccessful, asking if they would be interested in their children possibly attending a new online school next year.

The notice states that the schools are assessing the demand for an “independent co-educational institution affiliated” to the schools, offering an internationally registered and accredited online curriculum.

The notice invites parents to fill in a survey to gauge interest, and states the closing of schools due to Covid-19 has “necessitated online schooling at an unprecedented scale”.

“Teachers developed new skills and many parents and students have reported this style of teaching and learning to be to their liking.”

Wynberg Boys High principal Jan de Waal said the response had been overwhelmingly positive so far but cautioned that the online school would not be run by Wynberg Boys or Girls High schools, but would be independent, although affiliated.

Regarding a place in a ‘brick and mortar school’, Mauchline said parents of children who have not received places “must remain calm”.

“It is important to understand that the process is not complete. Once parents who have received offers of a place have accepted these, the WCED and schools will have a better idea of where there are still spaces available.’

Mauchline said schools will apply their admission policies in terms of their waiting lists and they could accept learners who have asked to be placed on waiting lists.

“Parents can also enquire from, ask for clarity or motivate for the application to be reconsidered to the SGB of the school.”

Should they still not be placed, the WCED has a duty to find them a school in which they can continue their education.

Mother City News

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JUNE 25 - JULY 24, 2020

Food review

Ferdinando’s: The genuine Italian touch Matilda Tullie I was lucky enough to have visited this gem of a restaurant before lockdown blew our fun. I feel it is important to give an idea of how great it is when you were able to dine-in.

Ferdinando’s Pizza is a vivacious, fun-loving space filled with never ending laughter, food and drinks. It oozes amore. Ferdinando’s unique history is beautifully illustrated in their sit-down menu, filling you with glee before settling on what pizza or pasta you would like. The restaurant is named after their dog Ferdinando, who was a Hout Bay local before finding his home with Kiki and Diego. Your hostess is Kiki an artist and the talent behind all the illustrations found in the restaurant, and Diego is a proud Italian and self-taught chef.

Ferdinando’s offers some of the best pizza I have had in Cape Town and when lockdown was announced I was genuinely upset at the thought of not being able to get their Queen Margherita. Luckily, they quickly made their way onto Uber Eats and Mr Delivery. When ordering from either of these platforms I have always had my food arrive hot and fresh! Kiki also gives us home bodies a flare of Ferdinando’s with her personalized painted pizza boxes- each one is unique. If you want a home delivery from the chef himself you can place an order between 12pm-7pm and get your pizza delivered. They deliver from the CBD to the Southern Suburbs.

When it comes to choosing your pizza there are so many delicious options it can be tough! They have an extensive variety of meaty pizza’s, to jam-packed vegetarian options and even have pizza’s for vegans.

At extra cost you can have a gluten free base. You really won’t feel left out and they certainly are not shy with the toppings.

More than pizza… Kiki Bisogno and her husband not only run Ferdinando’s Pizza in Observatory, she also is in charge of the Observatory Community Action Network which provides food for hundreds of homeless and poor people.

Ferdinando’s also have DIY pizza kits available to order so you can have a fun night in making your own dreamy pizza. You really won’t be disappointed when ordering from Ferdinando’s. Keep up to date with their social media pages on both Instagram and Facebook for any further announcements about advanced level 3.

Owner Kiki Bisogno not only runs the best pizza place beneath Table Mountain, she

also organises the Observatory Community Action Network feeding programme for the homeless, using her expertise from running the Obs Pasta Kitchen for the last three years.

Donations to Obs Pasta kitchen can be made to the International Association for Human Values (IAHV) Bank, First National Bank Branch, 250737, Lenasia Account 62045616119. Reference: Obspasta plus

your name.

For donations of R1000 or more 18A tax certificates can be issued please email Obspastakitchen@gmail.comwith your proof of payment, name and address.

You can find Ferdinando’s Pizza at 205 Lower Main Rd, Observatory. It is open from 12pm to 7pm every day.

Call them on 084 771 0485 for daily delivery.

Wine

Supporting black wine makers matters Sadé Allcock Worldwide over the last three months our attention has been called to the systemic racism that continues to exist in our society.

The death of George Floyd was a catalyst for a movement so big and so widespread that none could have predicted it. Black Lives Matter has once again become a global hashtag and ordinary citizens have taken to social media to petition for justice for those killed at the hands of a system designed to subjugate black people. What does all of this have to do with a column on wine in South Africa you might ask? Well, the South African wine industry is notoriously white.

White-owned wine farms, white winemakers and white sommeliers. Can you name one BIPOC (black, indigenous or person of colour) owned wine farm off the top of your head?

I certainly couldn’t. At any rate it’s about time the wine industry began to advocate for BIPOC representation when it comes to winemakers and sommeliers. Furthermore, we need to support and drum up demand for black owned wine brands. For your convenience I will mention here several of the BIPOC wine brands, winemakers and sommeliers that caught my eye. Although I have never tried them, Seven Sisters Winery, Sesfikile Wines and The Wine Shaq are all

Sibling strength...

The sisters of Seven Sisters winery.

wine brands owned by BIPOC that certainly deserve a second glance in store. I was pleasantly surprised to find one of Villiera’s top winemakers to be a person of colour as they are a relatively large wine brand and we have favourably reviewed their wines in the past. Other wine brands that have BIPOC winemakers include Magna Carta Wines, Ken

Forrester Wines and Nederburg Wines. All of these are reputable and well-known brands, some of whom produce good, if not excellent wines. Well-known BIPOC sommeliers are more common, including Tinashe Nyamudoka at The Test Kitchen and Ali Mataka at The Norval Foundation. These are just some of the people and brands who, with our money,

time and energy, have the power to propel a more integrated and inclusive industry. If you do your own personal research I am sure you will find many more individuals worthy of recognition for their contribution to the wine industry. Please consider buying and enjoying their wines as a means of supporting them along your wine journey.

JUNE 25 - JULY 24, 2020

Mother City News

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Book Reviews

Madness: Stories of Uncertainty and Hope While waiting for my car’s tyres to be changed and wheels balanced in Maitland three days ago, I was approached politely by a young man who wanted to ask something of me. It was an unusually hot winter’s day, there was a dry berg wind. He was barefoot, filthy, with matted hair and dressed in ragged pants and a sleeveless hoodie, holding a R2 coin in his hand. What he wanted was a R5 so he could buy a cigarette. I didn’t have a R5 but I had some tobacco, so I rolled him a smoke and he wandered off, satisfied.

He was mild-mannered, with a pleasant face despite the dirt and matted hair, but there is little doubt his condition is due to suffering a mental illness and is someone Dr Sean Baumann may have treated is his 25 years of working as a clinical psychiatrist at Valkenberg.

Having read Baumann’s book, Madness: Stories of Uncertainty and Hope, I also suspect that it will not be long before he is presented, possibly after being picked up by the police, at Valkenberg, or one of the three other psychiatric hospital in Cape Town, for treatment, once again.

Baumann’s book, in which he reflects on the thousands of cases he’s dealt with over his career, also makes clear that to romanticise his mild and forthright manner, is to be in danger of not recognising the grip of turmoil and fear mental illness holds over the lives of those it affects; the grip of terror that envelops a mind when the sense of self is lost,

when the boundaries between identity and the surrounding world disappear and there is nothing but noise. How it can make a person so overwhelmed that they are not able to move or even talk.

Or the shame of realising one tried to kill one’s mother after violently succumbing to a delusion.

In a series of 41 chapters, each one dealing with a theme, Baumann introduces us to person after person after person whose life, and that of their families – most especially the mothers - has been devastated by madness.

He also addresses madness and its portrayal in theatre, madness and art, and the romance of madness. What is made abundantly clear is that, while there has to be hope that the illness can be managed through proper medication and care, mental illness is devastating. Particularly in a society such as ours which is so beset with poverty and social struggle, and along with that the link between mental illness and poverty.

Being poor means support structures are

undermined which means it more likely the patient will cease taking their medication which leads to the onset of symptoms which cause the destruction of relationships and property, which further undermines the social framework, sometimes leading to isolation and homelessness.

And the affliction of mental illness is well-trodden path to poverty.

Admission to a psychiatric hospital is also not a long-term solution. The legion of mentally ill who also lack suitable support structures cannot be housed indefinitely.

Baumann writes: “There is a constant pressure to discharge. The male acute service where I am a consultant comprises one hundred beds. There are about eighty to one hundred admissions a month, which means we need to maintain a constant throughput, to discharge in order to admit. Earlier in the day I was informed that there were over forty people on the waiting list.”

In the face of the many cases dealt with at

the hospital on a daily basis, hope for a stable, safe, and meaningful life seems so impossible as to be a lie. The bare facts of the hundreds, if not thousands of cases brought to bear in this book, tells the scale of the tragedy.

Yet, Baumann does not let go the thread, however fragile, of hope, threading it through the pages with a delicate trace of poetry in places, and with exhausted determination where necessary.

The use of the term ‘Madness’ in the title is deliberate, although he recognises that “the notion of madness is problematic and controversial”.

“Part of the problem is terminology.

‘Madness’ is a folk term, it is outside the conservative domain of medicine, it is fraught with metaphors. It can seem casual and flippant, and so cause hurt. The word is used here deliberately but cautiously, and with a degree of anxiety that its use might be misinterpreted as provocative.”

However, he goes on to write: “The intention is in a way to reclaim madness, to change the way we think about madness and without being romantic or simply ignorant, to restore a degree of dignity and respect for these extreme states of mind.”

The intention is certainly achieved in this book. You will never think of madness in the same way.

Due south of Copenhagen by Mark Winkler.

The Glass Hotel

by Emily St John Mandel

White by Bret Easton Ellis

Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching

by Mychal Denzel Smith

Steve Kretzmann

Mark is the Cape Town author of four or 5 novels. I’ve always felt he’s an interesting storyteller who produces decent novels which fall a little short of what they could have been. His new one is about the editor of a small-town newspaper looking back at stuff that went down in the town when he was a kid, as well as his really shitty army experience. I’ve never been interested in the army stories genre but here it didn’t irritate me as much as usual. A story well told about never escaping our ghosts from the past.

A decent, slight novel which is worth reading but not going to blow anyone away.

A book that’s not really at all what you think it’s about. Yes, there is a night at “the glass hotel” that sparks a low stakes mystery that is in the background of a high stakes crisis (2009 crash).

I don’t want to reveal too much, cause I think that will spoil the book; it just unravels so deliciously. It’s bloody fantastic, not a single sentence is a waste or is just padding, the characters are fleshed out extremely well (even the ones who are more or less plot devices for the others). If it was a wine, it would be a full-bodied red. Just a beautifully crafted, rich novel, definitely recommend this.

Madness: Stories of Uncertainty and Hope, is published by Jonathan Ball Publishers and is available at The Book Lounge, cnr Roeland and Buitenkant Streets

A powerful and unflinchingly honest comingof-age memoir blended with cultural criticism, about growing up as a black millennial man in the US. Smith explores the dissonance between what he saw as his potential life outcomes – how he was ‘raised to be Barack Obama but could have been Trayvon Martin’.

The book chronicles Smith’s political education, influenced partly by varsity and popular culture. He writes about the prevalence of untreated mental illness in the Black community, and shares details of his own PTSD and depression. Although Smith touches only briefly on the erasure of black womxn’s and queer people’s voices from the movement against racism, he is very clear about the need to address and dismantle toxic masculinity within the movement and otherwise.

Self-Aware, Vulnerable, Intelligent, Gripping

Short reviews supplied by staff of The Book Lounge, the best indi bookstore in Cape Town.

Mother City News

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JUNE 25 - JULY 24, 2020

About the Koeberg Public Safety Information Forum

Section 26(4) of the NNR Act states that “The holder of a nuclear installation license must establish a public safety information forum as prescribed De in order to inform the persons living in the municipal ha ar Narea in respect of which an emergency plan been shas eig established on nuclear safety and be safety radiation hmatters.”

en

bo p ur Safety Information o What is thes Public tp , d(PSIF)?

Forum o uetakes place four times The PSIF is a meetingnwhich ed to a year. It is used as a platform . T forsaresidents within fe he Nuclear the municipal boundary of Koeberg ty Power Konuclear Station, to enquire about and receive m safety e related information from the facility. eb er asu g Na res Which topics are discussed? tu rel The forum will address any topic that the members r a feel could impact their health, environment, and e R te es d to safety from a nuclear emergency preparedness er point of view. ve CO an VID Who should attend? d Vi -19, All persons living within the municipal area around sit th Koeberg, all affected and interested organisations or e ’s Ju or parties, and any other persons concerned about Ce ne their health and safety from a nuclear and radiation nt 20 safety point of view are welcome to attend the re forum. Persons wishing to attend are requested to ha 20 P s a ub register as a member. lso lic How do I register? be Saf Kindly email your details, i.e. full name, contact en ety number, organisation (if applicable) or indicate re In st fo whether you are a resident, to JoshuaD@eskom.co.za ric rm or contact tel. +27 21 550 4238. te d atio un n When are the PSIF meetings held? til Fo Dates for the meetings are published in the fu ru rth m annual Koeberg Emergency Plan Calendar, which er (P residents around the station would have received no SIF in January 2020. The PSIF meeting dates for this tic ) year are: e.

• Thursday, 25 June 2020; • Thursday, 17 September 2020; and • Thursday, 26 November 2020.

Who to talk to For more information, contact Lewis Phidza, Koeberg Stakeholder Management Manager, at tel. +27 21 550 5758 or send an email to PhidzaNL@eskom.co.za. Alternatively contact Debbie Joshua at tel. +27 21 550 4238 or send an email to JoshuaD@eskom.co.za Should you not have received a Koeberg Emergency Plan Calendar and are a resident in the 16km radius of the station (Urgent Protective Action Zone), please contact the Koeberg Stakeholder Management Department at tel. +27 21 550 4238.

JUNE 25 - JULY 24, 2020

Mother City News

7

Arts and culture

Playwright profile: Juliet Jenkin gets white right

Steve Kretzmann There was a Woolworths moment in South African academia recently. Another one.

This latest, which played out in the first weeks of June involved a white professor publishing a two-page article in a scientific journal on research in which questions which contain broad and unsubstantiated assumptions about black experience and aspirations were posed. Black academics took offence. The university took a stance.

Matters assumed a political bent. The white professor got defensive, citing an attack on academic freedom.

The professor in question, deputy director of the Institute for Communities and Wildlife Africa Nicoli Nattrass, who published her research commentary in the South African Journal of Science, seemed oblivious to what the cause of the offense might be, sincerely believing she acted with the best of intentions without racial prejudice or insinuation.

This blindness to the contradictions, and lack of imaginative ability to work outside of a particular structured model, defines the unnecessary debacle as a Woolworths moment, replete with its unfortunate Karen.

Playwright Juliet Jenkin has managed to capture the multifarious facets of this worldview in her play, aptly titled: Woolworths.

She places a microscope on the predominantly white, middle class South African consumer culture’s privileged assumptions and cultivated blind spots, and magnifies them for us all to see.

It is a 50-minute non-liner breakneck ride that either sees you laughing out loud with the exhilaration of an artist nailing it, or shrinking back with your arms crossed. It doesn’t offer much middle ground.

As for Juliet Jenkin, after about 15 years you reach a point in your professional life

where you have a past tense, where you take stock, look at what you have achieved, get your bearings and adjust your heading.

Following her graduation from the University of Cape Town, she wrote the acclaimed The Boy Who Fell From the Roof, and her professional journey sped off as it was staged in 2005.

“When I was young I had a celebrated beginning to my career,” she says.

The Boy Who Fell From the Roof, which came out of the Artscape new writers programme in 2005, was directed by Roy Sargeant. There were fantastic young performers in it, too.

There were many more plays written, another seven at least, and Jenkin performed in a few others, often with Sargeant at the helm.

The last play she wrote was Big Girl in 2011, and then she went quiet.

“I took a long leave of absence from theatre,” she says during a 45-minute WhatsApp call.

“I thought I’d never do it again.”

She mentions the words “toxic”, and “abusive”.

She talks of wrestling with ego, she talks of identity, of being emotionally tied to theatre. The break was such that she “didn’t even watch a play” for six years.

She lived alone and was pretty much a hermit, working from home as a writer for the radio play Radio Vuka on SAfm, which had over 2,000 episodes.

“I thought I could let go of theatre as a home and a way of being in the world. Or even thinking of making art at all.”

It was all she had done, and thought perhaps there was something else, only to write Woolworths and realise she couldn’t get away from it.

In hindsight, it appears that Big Girl which is about a young woman who, upon witnessing a rape, does something about

it, and unwittingly becomes a giant – was Jenkin herself striding away from a toxic situation and escaping to her own creative wilderness. Woolworths is her return from the mountain, now fierce and unflinching.

She’s realised that although she can’t escape theatre, from here on she’s setting the terms.

It’s easier now, she says.

Although Woolworths didn’t come all at once: “You feel it – then you.. takes awhile – it builds up.”

It built up to erupt into a work that rests on a metaphor for capital and consumerism that is also not a metaphor, but a physical structure, replicated across the country.

“Woolworths is such a strong symbolic landscape. Whenever I’m in there it seems so extreme.”

It is this “psychic landscape” that the play replicates, or at least evokes, in the process doing away with narrative, which was always what she was hankering after in her writing.

In some ways it is the presentation of a particular English white South African world view, which is rarely dissected despite, or perhaps because, this consumerist view of the world is the dominant paradigm. This Woolworthian view is not exclusive to English white South Africans, it intersects with class and capital. It just so happens that in South Africa class, capital, and race are closely intertwined.

Jenkin observes that white English South African theatre makers, either in an effort to, or appear to, place themselves within the diversity of the broader population, often focus on what they see as black experience, or the intersection of black and white experience.

The need to foreground black narratives in post ‘94 theatre also saw white theatremakers transposing their stories into foreign settings. Particularly noticeable around 2010 was the introduction of

whimsical Eastern European elements which took the stories away from a local interrogation, she says.

This, she thinks is a way of avoiding dealing with white English identity in South Africa, of keeping it invisible.

This invisibility is the culture’s own way of protecting itself, of maintaining the status quo. If what is considered normal and aspirational is probed and called into question it is placed in danger of being found wanting. “Thus its very identity is about concealing itself.”

She compares this to an algorithm that determines what is seen by just running along quietly in the background. It is also telling that algorithms have come to be perceived as “a sort of insidious design”.

This “undercover” assumption of values needs to be seen. “This is how you walk. This is how you talk.”

It also needs to be recognised that South African English is its own dialect with its own poetry and history and contemporary idiom and “the self invisibility of it is a way of enacting power, however unconsciously” – in not been seen it is unable to be dissected.

“It’s about power and what power is, which is, I suppose, paranoid and vulnerable.”

“It’s also about seeing behind the mask of privilege, and revealing the violence of this mistrust in self and in others, the fear it breeds and its resultant believe in the need for protection.

This examination of the intersection of race, class, privilege and power, which has won awards as it appeared in theatres around the country since 2017 until just before Covid, is being presented at the virtual National Arts Festival as a radio play.

Woolworths is on the National Arts Festival programme from 29 June. Find it at www.nationalartsfestival.co.za

Breaking the echo chamber in the city bowl and beyond

FREE COPY

JUNE 25 - JULY 24, 2020

vNAF: The festival’s in the house. guys do it well.

Toppling the system… Who Do We Come to H(a)unt is one of the intriguing interactive shows on the vNAF over the coming ten days, in which European artist Marcio Carvalho examines the global phenomenon of statues of racist figures being overthrown.

Talking 360 there’s Azibuye - The Occupation in which two homeless black artists take occupation of an abandoned mansion in Johannesburg. It features Masello Motana, Evan Abrahamse, and Selby Shiba, with director Dylan Valley.

In dance there’s the intriguing Tlhago and META| m o r p h, in which musicians Brydon Bolton and Shane Cooper have participated.

We’ll watch anything they’ve worked on.

Friday 26 June Moving on, swiftly and skipping a host of intriguing selections you should not hesitate to check out, to Day 2, Friday 26 July, but not before we’ve also had a look at Who Do We Come To H(a)unt for a Europeans eye view of the toppling of statues.

Which might be a good way to move onto Mamela Nyamza, whose monumental work in dance deserves a statue, except it would be insulting to honour her with something that cannot move. She presents Pest Control which is partly billed as a protest against cronyism with the arts itself. Expect no metaphorical holds barred.

F

rom today until 5 July, South Africa’s best artists, along with top artists from the overseas, are presenting over 200 works of theatre, film, digital art, webinars, and things barely definable, in your home. This is a big deal. The Critter is here to tell you why, and to provide a fewpointers to lead you through the plethora of performance at our fingertips Whatever it is, this virtual festival, it is happening. With quicksilver decision making and commitment, the National Arts Festival team are pulling it off: the first national arts festival you don’t have to travel to Grahamstown – correction, Makhanda – to watch.

It’s weird, not organising accommodation and a day on the road and someone to feed the cat and looking forward to cresting the bowl that encompasses the little city and descending into the electric energy and hugging all your friends. But weird times are upon us, and they hold a different set of beauties and discoveries.

One of these is that things of value exist outside the limitation of distance and matter, and remain continuous. Such as the willingness to create something and release it into the world, which is what artists across the world have continued to do, adapting their tools as they go. Hundreds of artists are able to do so over the coming 11 days because the collaborators at the National Arts Festival have the same approach. It is one that suffuses theatre, and what gives it its sense of magic, made up of inspiration, manic energy, panic, exhaustion, and elation.

Three months ago, just as Ramaphosa was closing theatres and gatherings – a week

before the actual lockdown announcement – NAF decided this year was going to be virtual.

And then they made it happen. We could almost see the building blocks as they were moved into place. The process of creating an online festival was invitingly inclusive.

CEO Monica Newton, having just arrived in Makhanda in January after having taken over from the ebullient Tony Lankester, invited artists to participate in Zoom sessions, ask questions and make suggestions, and hosted information webinars with experienced theatremakers and digital artists.

Now it is here.

Question is, with scores of shows, films, creations, workshops and webinars on offer, how to choose what to watch?

We are not able to answer that, but will try assist a little.

Mostly we look at the artists involved.

Many of them we’ve seen present work at festivals past, some of them we’ve never heard of before, some are from overseas.

Almost everything involves new creative teams.

One of the things going virtual has done is to shift work off the lit stage and away from the scaffold seats with the dinky Standard Bank emblazoned cushions, and onto our backlit screens. Obviously. Less obvious is that the shift in medium of delivery has resulted in new collaborations and different sets of tools.

This has happened organically as artists have reached out across disciplines that rarely, and generally tentatively, worked

together. The outstretched hand of the actor figuring out how to film and edit is grasped by the website designer who has been in the wings itching to exercise some creativity.

One presentation at vNAF is even premised on the idea of grouping artists with different skills together to create whatever their imagination conjures.

Virtual Blackouts: Experiments in the Future of Form, takes this bold step into virtual theatre and performance by bringing together five groups of writers, directors, actors, scenographers and digital artists from around the country to produce works.

The list of collaborators is long, but take it from us they are among the most exciting artists in this country. Do not miss the once-off presentation of their creations on Wednesday 1 July.

But let’s skip back to the beginning for things that have caught our eye, bearing in mind we’re only talking about the Main programme here. The curtain has yet to part on what the Fringe holds (yes, the speed of adaptation under unique circumstanes means virtual fest is down to the wire) so we’ll have to deal with that later.

Thursday 25 June Day 1 is simply ridiculous. Everything looks delicious, each promises a unique view on the world. There’s Nixon in Agony, a radio drama imagining a drunk and angry American President, Richard Nixon, in his office the night before his impeachment hearing. Nixon is played by the incredible Steven Berkoff. You have to listen to this with your headphones on as it uses spatially recorded sound and stereo to create a 360 degree aural experience. Done well, it is mind expanding, and we’re pretty certain these

What Standard Bank Young Artist for jazz, Sisonke Xonti is up to will also be revealed on Friday. Again with the Shane Cooper, and Bokani Dyer on piano. Yeeesh! These cats are shit hot.

Saturday 27 June Come Saturday, dig in to some storytelling with isitimela Sendaba – The Story Train.

Assitej SA is involved so bring the children.

There’s also a couple of digital arts webinars and Human Study #1 from a distance looks fascinating. It involves three robots drawing a human model.

Saturday night is reserved for sliding into Breathing Space, in which the marvelous Michelle Douglas acts in a film about Olive Schreiner. This year is the centenary of Schreiner’s death, so it will be fitting to raise a glass.

Sunday 28 June There is something darkly humorous about watching a horror film on a Sunday, and Lockdown Went Wrong provides the excuse.

The poster looks deliciously cheesy but it was a finalist in the Britflicks Lockdown Film Fest so it may well put the fear of god into you. To alleviate that, there’s Buhle Ngaba in Swan Song, directed by Ilana Cilliers.

That’s quite a long weekend. For help through the rest of the fest, look out for more vNAF guides on The Critter (www.thecritter. co.za) once we’ve slurped from the hot mug of artistic expression ourselves.

Go buy your day passes and tickets (really cheap, really) and make your own decisions about the programme on the National Arts Festival website, which is www. nationalartsfestival.co.za.

Here’s to the artists, the technicians, and to all of us.

We buy vinyl. If you have inherited a crateful, or shifted to digital, we’ll exchange for cash. Call 083 348 4936. We’ll come to you.