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Dear audience, one worries most about what’s happening to you

– Pieter-Dirk Uys, Cape Times, 2 July 2020

Throughout my life I have been used to other people being in lockdown. Rapunzel up in her tower with only her long hair as a possible escape. The man in the iron mask. 90-day and 180-day detention without trial. And then of course the man who changed all our lives after coming out of 27 years of lockdown. Our history is rich is using lockdowns as punishment. Seldom has it been suggested as a solution. Now we have whole nations in isolation because of an invisible virus that flaunts democracy while taking no sides.

 

I’m not a stranger to being on my own. As a writer, I don’t care to share my space with anyone. As a performer I prepare in seclusion. In early March I had a monthly 2020 diary that had over 200 one-man theatre performances confirmed across South Africa and in London. We all took note of a viral outbreak in China, not dissimilar to such emergencies in West Africa. From Ebola to Corona? Same old story but with knobs on. Within weeks the impossible had become the new survival. My diary started shedding entries until there were just blank white pages until December. Paradise was closing down. The world had stopped.

 

The novelty soon wore off as thousands became infected among billions affected. Throughout this lockdown the fate of people in distress is a permanent reminder of how bad things are.

 

I live from day to day for many reasons. To think too far ahead is to ask for trouble. No one knows what will happen and yet everyone has an opinion. The “experts" break social distancing as they crowd together without facemasks in front of television cameras. Some of the most powerful politicians in the world laugh it off as a hoax, a passing infection or as the orange-haired man without a mask says: ‘kungflu’. Too much confusion allows the imagination to take over and soon you are visualising your own funeral as a Wagner opera.

 

I look forward to every day under lockdown after sticking out my tongue and seeing no signs of feverishness. There is no dry cough. My throat is not sore. I can taste and smell. Thank heavens today I definitely won’t come down with Covid19. And tomorrow? The whole routine repeats itself. Hello day! Hello tongue! Hello time.

Time? Now that’s new and unexpected. Everything I am doing during this self-imposed quarantine/lockdown are things that never found the time to be done when the diary was full. In the old normal as an entertainer, my evenings were crowded with energy, adrenaline and performance. It was an open world for those who paid to watch with no social distancing. My audience was the oxygen of survival, my drug of choice. Suddenly I am busy sorting all the socks and tax documents, making lists of what was never done and needs to be done. Also reading big and long books, while being staff to the cats and convincing the dogs that I'm the burglar that only used to pop in once a day.

 

So that’s what I do in my isolation. I talk myself through these months of Tuesdays. I soon learnt what to avoid. Television can become toxic with all its breaking news, from the burning Amazon jungles, to the mortuaries of Italy and into the care homes of Britain. There is nothing you can do about any of it. Just be sure to refer to the WHO for correct information and delete the rest as quickly as it tweets at you.

 

And yet life goes on outside the barricades. Nature is not fazed by the sudden lack of us. More birds fly around than ever before. The skies above Beijing and New Delhi are clear and blue. Selfies are being taken and spread around a stunned world. In my small universe cats must be fed, dogs must be raced around the garden, birds need feeding. It helps knowing that it’s not all about me. What worries one the most is what's happening to you, dear audience.

  • Pieter-Dirk Uys says hello darling! Will be live-streamed on July 17 at 6pm from Penny Lane Studios in Cape Town, a 67-minute performance to celebrate Mandela Day. Book: https://qkt.io/pieter-dirk-uys-says-hello-darling .

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