2012-1

5 minutes with... Pieter-Dirk Uys

“The extraordinary thing about Julius Malema is what he says is terribly important”. Pieter-Dirk Uys talks to Newswatch about dirty politics, Durban audiences — and weapons of 'mass distraction'.

– Hannah Keal, Newswatch (East Coast Radio), 16 March 2012

"Humour is a great weapon of mass distraction," comments master satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys as we sit down in his dressing room at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre ahead of his Thursday night performance of his new one-man show, Adapt or Fly.

It's 30 years since he premièred 'Adapt or Dye', (a play on PW Botha's infamous words: 'Adapt or die') a ground-breaking and controversial one-man show reflecting the realities of apartheid politics at the time, which also saw SA's "most famous white woman" Evita Bezuidenhout become flesh.

His latest offering is an at once dark and fall-off-your-chair funny romp through the past 30 years of SA's political landscape.

Q: How did your new show come about?

A: This one's called Adapt or Fly — also given to me by politicians. Someone in the ANC Youth League said "if you don't like the ways things are going under the Youth League, you can adapt or fly!" and I thought 'oh, thank you!'. I think we've got quite a serious year ahead, on the road to Mangaung, with the ANC not governing us but fighting each other, so we've got to sort ourselves out ... The things one focused on during the apartheid years, now suddenly you are thinking 'but wait, why is the smell the same?' And you realise it's got nothing to do with apartheid; it's politics. It's careless politics, and it's also corrupt politics and it happens throughout the world. So that's where the targets emerge.

Q: In terms of using satire as political commentary on stage have things changed for you since 1994?

A: Totally. The Apartheid government killed people. The new democratic government lets them die, which makes me even more angry. TB, HIV, poverty, no water, no electricity, still the bucket system after 18 years of democracy. It doesn't make sense. So there's enough motivation to get out there and not shout — because it doesn't work to shout from the stage — [rather] get a balance of 49 percent anger, 51 percent entertainment. That's the secret.

Q: How have audiences received Adapt or Fly?

A: Durban is always a very interesting audience because I think KwaZulu-Natal has always been the frontier, the frontier province. And thanks to Mike Sutcliffe, Durban has very much been a frontier town. He's given me tons of wonderful material ... Audiences change from day to day. Every night I think 'Oops! Now I am going to really have the first audience of my life!' because you never know. I am very glad when people enjoy it, but also when they see the spaces between the words. I don't try and be too obvious, but when they see things I am glad they saw — between the lines and the laughs — and that's good.

Q: Tannie Evita and you have been very critical of Julius Malema in the past. What do you make of the current developments in his political career?

A: Malema is fabulous material. I am delighted because everybody knows who I am talking about. That's pretty important. I say JuJu in Poff Adder and they know what I am talking about. It's been a very interesting soap opera of politics ... I think the extraordinary thing about Julius Malema is what he says is terribly important. Everything he touches on is a major issue that we all should be concerned about. The way he did it tripped him up. I think he was a little bit taken by his own small print, and the media blew him up into this big humpty-dumpty. And he fell off the wall. I think the ANC has reacted to him because he is definitely a threat to the old regime in the ANC. 18 years have passed, and there is too much need. Too much poverty, terrible education — schools that are done in thatched-roof rondavels. There's no excuse for that. Nobody can say it's the legacy of apartheid. I am sorry, it's 18 years later. That's a generation. So Malema's been doing a lot of that, and I think the future of South Africa will be very grateful for his irritation; this rash that he caused. I [also] don't think we can write him off just because he's been kicked out of the party.

Q: Do you feel positive about South Africa's future?

A: I know where we come from, and I can assure you it's a far better place that we're in now. It's a speed wobble on a daily basis, it's dicey and it's not that predictable, but we've got the freedom to have opinions. We've got the freedom of speech, the freedom of expression, we can move around at will — we can live. That's where we've got to stay. We've got to be free.

Adapt or Fly runs until Sunday March 18 at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre in Durban. Book via computicket. Pieter-Dirk Uys will be back in KZN in June for shows in Pietermaritzburg.

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