Archived Reviews of Adapt or Fly
REVIEWS OF ADAPT OR FLY in JOHANNESBURG — OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2013
**** 30 years on, Uys still holds a mirror
– Diane de Beer, The Star, 29 October 2013
From the darkness of his first one-man show in 1982, Adapt or Dye, to the dazzling kaleidoscope of rainbow colours in this 2013 show, Adapt or Fly.
That’s the way the master of mockery describes his show, with politicians of the particular time providing the titles — as they always have done and sadly still do. Just as he thought he wouldn’t have a voice any longer — things were good and free, everything we longed for was finally here — history came home to play and the game is on.
That’s the thing about Uys, he doesn’t miss a beat. He checks the pulse of the nation, listens to his conscience as he always has, steps up to the challenge — and lets rip. Through the years he has refined the way he speaks his mind on things that matter most and he tells it exactly as it is — no ducking or diving.
It’s all about entertainment as he holds the laughter from beginning to end while twisting the dagger deftly and slyly to never dim the truth. Nothing escapes his gaze as he trips the times horrific from the early days of apartheid, rolling from one prime minister to the next by donning the ubiquitous hat and rearranging the squint to suit a particular politician, which he embodies perfectly.
It’s to the manner born and as he runs through a familiar spectrum, one is reminded of the way he side- stepped the security police and all the shenanigans to say what he came to say at a time when too few were willing to speak out.
He’s still out there doing it with a chorus of characters that keep growing.
It’s the combination of the dazzling delivery and the spectacular script, in the looking back to remind us of the horror that was and the future which we have to safeguard, that he comes up time and again with something that has a particular format but is kept fresh as he adapts to the rhetoric of the day. And I mean day.
One doesn’t want to spoil the evening by sharing too much because part of the Uys longevity has to do with the way he captures the moment.
He has a deep love for his country and its people. He believes they will win the day and he’s standing up, speaking his mind in a way that holds their attention, makes them scream with laughter as the memories good and bad roll by, but also puts it into context lest anyone forgets where we have been and where we should be going.
Thirty years on, he has gained in experience and weathered all the storms. Many of those he has stood in front of a mirror for all to see are long gone. Others have slipped into their shady shoes. But look, he is still here, shouting as loudly as he did through the worst year and making us laugh.
Always the clown, he pulls a face, cackles with delight and struts his stuff while shining a searing light on people who should be paying attention to what they struggled for. It’s the perfect storm as you rock with laughter while reaching for the hanky to hide that pesky tear.
Eish — he still stings with his satire
– Peter Feldman, Artslink, 25 October 2013
I’ve lost count the number of times I’ve seen Pieter-Dirk Uys perform, but he still manages to conjure up compelling theatre.
This time around he is doing “Adapt or Fly.” It’s a show I’ve seen before, but in this incarnation he has introduced fresh blood and updated the scenery. His statements and his observations remain as insightful, funny and as spot-on as usual. He has lost none of his sting.
I won’t easily forget Uys’ striking opening, clad in his chilling Adolf Hitler gear, staring out at the audience and drawing political comparisons with Julius Malema. It’s a frightening concept, even when it’s bitingly funny.
Uys has often acknowledged the work of the politicians who have given him fodder for his script, and in this show he once again revisits past Nationalist Prime Ministers, creating their distinctive persona with rare brilliance. All the old guard are there, from DF Malan to FW de Klerk, and he brings them vividly to life. With wig, make-up, clothes and his thoroughly mobile face, he embodies the essence of those men. His Nelson Mandela isn’t bad either, and he gets that voice almost to perfection.
Pik Botha is given a second life and Uys’ hilarious caricature of him helps define what this politician was all about. His famous kugel, Nowell Fine, now an old woman visiting family in Toronto, and the celebrated Evita Bezuidenhout also put in an appearance, much to the delight of the audience.
Over the decades Pieter-Dirk Uys, as a satirist, has set a benchmark of excellence and he continues to entertain with his sharp wit and keen understanding of everything South African.
“Adapt of Fly” is on at the Main Theatre at Pieter Toerien’s Montecasino Theatre.
One Evita, one vote
– Jennifer de Klerk, Artslink, 2 November 2013
Thirty years ago Pieter Dirk Uys said “Dankie Oom” to his parliamentary scriptwriter for the title “Adapt or Die”.
His career took off on a diet of bread and Bothas. Armed with his wigs, moustaches and other props in cardboard boxes scrounged off the street, he braved the dark days of apartheid, ducking the security police and cringing at the sound of sirens and gunshots around the Market Theatre.
Then, as he says ruefully, he needed a lot of make-up to pull off the NP big wigs, PW, Pik and their coterie; now, at the age of 68, it simply takes tucking in the chin and a change of expression. In a swift montage we are treated to some of them — after all, if we do not know where we come from, how can we celebrate where we are now?
And where we are now is the eve of the 2014 election.
Uys pulls no punches. From his first portrayal of Adolf Hitler with his chilling parallels to Julius Malema and policies of past and future, there is an undercurrent of foreboding. Are we doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past? Tragedy or farce?
Witty one-liners, pithy insights, outrageous comments fly and sting like mosquitoes on a hot night. Uys keeps his audience — mostly older on this occasion — rocking with laughter and rueful identification.
Skilfully he switches the mood, taking us to the Cape Flats a for a poignant look back at forced removals, then showing us redoubtable Anna in her shawl and headscarf slipping DA brochures under doors in the dead of night in 2013. She doesn’t mince her words either.
In 1994 his diet of Bothas ended. Not so easy to portray Mandela and company. He manages the distinctive voice, pulls off Motlanthe with a bokbaard and, of course, Zuma plays right into his hands.
Characters changed, but his parliamentary scriptwriters stayed right on the ball. It was the ANCYL that gave him his latest title “Adapt or Fly” and more than enough material.
As you would expect, his finger is constantly on the pulse of the news. Every headline is fresh inspiration and current references abound.
Where are we going? The foreboding, the feeling of dread, if not fear, intensifies. He seizes on a youngster in the audience, 13 years old, a Born Free, and asks the audience to pledge that there will be a democracy when she is old enough to vote. After all, it’s a short walk to Zimbabwe.
And what of the election? Next year, will he have the freedom of speech and expression to stand on the Montecasino stage and do what he does best? Will the new government banish Evita Bezuidenhout from the political arena for good?
At the start he tells us that the only thing to do with corrupt politicians is to order them to “Go to Hell”. Enthusiastically the audience shouted Hitler off the stage.
We still have the power. It’s called the vote.
Vermaak wat waarsku
– Rudolf Stehle, Beeld, 3 November 2013
Met dié jongste weergawe van Adapt or Fly kom ’n mens weer onder die indruk van Pieter-Dirk Uys se vermoë om ’n storie te vertel.
Weliswaar ’n storie met baie afdraaipaaie en ’n swetterjoel bekende en nuwe karakters, maar immer boeiend.
Die titel Adapt or Fly is glo ontleen aan ’n opmerking deur Floyd Shivambu, voormalige woordvoerder van die ANC-jeugliga, aan wit Suid-Afrikaners.
Dit verwys terselfdertyd terug na Uys se satire Adapt or Dye van 1981. Dit titel was toe ’n speling op die bekende slagspreuk “adapt or die” van die destydse eerste minister P.W. Botha.
Met die algemene verkiesing om die draai, het Uys korrupte politici van nou én toeka in sy visier.
Dis duidelik dat hy byhou met nuwe verwikkelinge in die politiek: Die onlangs gestigte Ekonomiese Vryheidsvegters, Julius Malema se nuwe politieke party, verdiskonteer hy in die vorm van ’n kostelike Hitler-skets.
Maar hy betrek ook die politieke verlede.
Een vir een laat hy die rits leiers van die Nasionale Party aantree — van D.F. Malan in 1948 tot by F.W de Klerk in 1990’s, maar so ook die ANC-presidente tot by Jacob Zuma.
’n Droë politieke verhandeling is Adapt or Fly allermins.
Uys vervleg die politieke geskiedenis met persoonlike staaltjies en sketse van herkenbare karakters waarin hy vooroordele jeens ras, klas en seksuele oriëntasie belig.
Daar is onder meer Mrs Petersen van die Kaapse Vlakte, Pik Botha en die liberale kugel Nowell Fine, wat reeds in 1978 deur Uys aan gehore bekend gestel is en nou in haar 70’s is.
Met Uys op die verhoog, weet jy jy is in betroubare hande en dat die volgende lagbui slegs ’n asemteug weg is.
Uys laat die gehoor skaterlag met kwinkslae soos “hypocrisy is the Vaseline of political intercourse” of met “Pik Botha” wat selfvoldaan aan die Waarheids-en-versoeningskommissie laat hoor: “My conscience is clear, because I never used it.”
Die humor het egter soos gebruiklik ’n snykant.
Soos Uys opmerk, het Thabo Mbeki se belaglike vigsbeleid gelei tot 380 000 begrafnisse per jaar en het baie township-inwoners wat nie tydens die 1980’s gehoor gegee het aan Botha se slagspreuk nie, met hul lewe daarvoor geboet.
Adapt or Fly is aangrypend, vermaaklik, ontstellend en ’n tydige waarskuwing dat onreg nie noodwendig tot die verlede behoort nie.
Dark humour provides Uys with bite in laugh
– Robyn Stassen, South African Jewish Report, 6 November 2013
With the swagger induced by a hat, rosettes, a gesture of the finger or of the tongue, the remarkable Pieter-Dirk Uys does it again, in a more thoughtful, sinister version of a work we feel like we’ve seen before. Only we haven’t.
While many lines that get the big laughs reach back into his established repertoire, Adapt or Fly might be his darkest work yet. Arguably, it’s one that gets audiences laughing the most.
Uys’ shtick around the prime ministers and presidents that govern our country is riotously funny, on a trajectory of South African leadership from DF Malan to post-election 2014, revealing them — with the exception of Nelson Mandela — as evil, ugly and stupid.
His own life is interwoven into the narrative, though we’ve heard and read his story often; it always bears repetition.
But it is the transformation of Uys into all these characters who have populated South Africa’s history and shaped it, that is most hilarious and terrifying. Suddenly, PW Botha with his gesticulating finger and scowl is reincarnated in our presence, to say nothing of John Vorster with his eyebrows and chilling notorious coldness over Biko’s death.
In the second half, there’s Nowell Fine, the Jewish kugel whose life we’ve followed since she became “part of the chorus line” in 1985. She’s older; much of her flimsy hypocrisy has faded into cynicism.
With a pair of thick spectacles, she’s become a Sea Point-based bobba — a bit abandoned — and consequently more three-dimensional than ever. She’s on her way back from a high school reunion in Toronto and disappointed at the shallow fickleness of her migrated peers.
Using the national anthems as poetic foils, the writing is crisply beautiful and filled with outrageous barbs.
You need to stave off the loudness of your laughter, so that you can hear each new turn and twist of political rhetoric and appreciate the light Uys shines on it.
The show’s caveat takes us into the 2014 election and the horror of a new president we might vote in if we aren’t careful. An analogy is threaded through the work balancing Hitler with Julius Malema. Glorious Evita Bezuidenhout is fabulously present, but deeply insulted by events.
And then, an ageing Uys, steps beyond his caricaturing and masks, raises the house lights and looks the audience in the eye. He appeals to those younger than 25 who have not yet voted, to do the responsible thing and register to vote, and take ownership of this situation.
Adapt or Fly — a development from the title of his first work Adapt or Dye –- sees Uys once again using the powers-that-be in government as his scriptwriters, but also with a vulnerability and an urgency we’ve not seen in him before. This tightly conceived, well-constructed piece will keep you on the edge, laughing at things that scare you most.