Archived Reviews of Adapt or Fly
REVIEWS OF ADAPT OR FLY in CAPE TOWN — JUNE 2012
**** The bad, the bold and the bastards
– Theresa Smith, Cape Argus, 19 June 2012
To paraphrase Pieter-Dirk Uys quoting someone else, history doesn’t repeat itself so much as rhyme. Also, when history then repeats itself, it turns tragedy to farce.
In his latest production, which is an updated reprise of Adapt or Dye, a show he did 30 years, Uys raises the chilling spectre of similarities between our present and previous government.
He has updated the show by tracking the country’s political history alongside his personal career as a satirist.
We get sketches of the most favoured characters he has lampooned and lambasted over the years, from DF Malan to more recently Jacob Zuma.
Using a few “cheap” plastic crates he hauls out key props to remind us of characters he didn’t create, we, the public, allowed.
With just a pair of specs, a mobile face and a wagging finger he transforms himself into PW Botha, then he dons a ridiculous ear and nose mask to bring us Piet Koornhof.
When he comes to Koornhof – the ultimate reject from a Disney show – Uys has to step out of character and comment on the irony of being sent Christmas cards by the ruling party. Is he really doing his work properly as subversive satirist if the rulers of the day like him? After all, his job is to point out that the emperor has no clothes, to highlight how absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Sad, then, that almost two decades into the new South Africa, Uys is angry enough to do it all over again. Between the suggested secrecy bill and the controversy around Brett Murray’s painting The Spear, there’s more than enough material just begging to be interrogated.
The second half of the show could do with some pruning in that it lacks the pacing of the first half as the sketches become longer, more complicated and more predicated on pathos than anger.
We get more of the characters Uys has created over the years, like Nowell Fine and, of course, everyone’s favourite tannie, Evita Bezuidenhout.
Do not underestimate the inventiveness of bad politics, warns Uys as he makes us laugh, but are we listening to what he’s really saying?
Using biting wit, dark sarcasm and totally un-pc entertainment, he enlightens us, challenging to pay attention to what is happening right under our noses.
*** Uys se satire kookwater
– Mariana Malan, Die Burger, 15 June 2012
Die rolspelers het verander, maar nie die politieke streke nie. Dit is maar alte duidelik as jy saam met Pieter-Dirk Uys ’n voëlvlug oor gebeure in ons land oor die afgelope 30 jaar onderneem.
Hy koppel gebeure aan sy ouderdom in ’n spesifieke jaar. Gehoorlede maak vinnig somme om te bepaal hoe oud húlle was toe sekere dinge gebeur het.
Sommige mense in die gehoor sit totaal verstom. Piet Koornhof se ore en neus is nie vir hulle snaaks nie. Hulle weet nie hoe Pik Botha alles kategories ontken het nie. Hulle weet darem van P.W. Botha met die lip en die waarskuwende vinger.
Geskiedenis kan nie verander word nie. In hierdie oorsig oor sy drie dekades op die verhoog sou dit ondenkbaar wees dat die belangrikste rolspelers in die politiek afwesig sou wees. Maar hopelik gaan hulle na dese rus.
Uys self word egter nie rus gegun nie. Hy bly aan die voorpunt met relevante en snydende kommentaar. Hy word ook nie onkant gevang nie. Jy kan maar weet op die aand wat hy op die verhoog is, gaan jy iets van die dag se nuus hoor.
Hy bly ’n meesterlike satirikus. Sy pittige, kort kommentaar is onverbeterlik. Hy beskryf byvoorbeeld Madiba se stem as iets tussen dié van Donald Duck en ’n hadida en beskryf skynheiligheid as die Vaseline van politieke seks.
Uit die monde van sy vrouekarakters kom steeds die meeste wysheid. Nowell Fine is gekrok, maar steeds onverskrokke. Mev. Petersen van die Kaapse Vlakte bly ’n juweel en Evita loop steeds ’n leerskare storm met haar bekkigheid.
In sy solovlug laat loop Uys almal wat dit verdien nog deeglik deur. Mag hy dit soos ’n hadida bly uitbasuin.
• Nog tot 30 Junie In die Baxter-teater, Rondebosch
Playing with politics in Adapt or Fly
– Eugene Yiga, bixcommunity.com, 15 June 2012
Government censorship. Racial tension. A country that could very well fall apart. With a democracy that’s long since come of age, you’d think that we’d be over these issues by now. Alas, we’re not. Our dysfunctional political scene gives comedians plenty of material to work with. And who better to take advantage of the times than master satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys? Thirty years after his controversial show about the apartheid regime, he’s back with more in Adapt or Fly.
Right from the start, it’s clear that this politically incorrect show isn’t for the sensitive. He opens with a scene of Hitler in hell, giving advice to Julius “Kidi Amin” Malema. (It’s a little uncanny how many similarities are quickly drawn between the two, but I won’t spoil the fun by mentioning them here.)
Fortunately, Adapt or Fly isn’t about Uys picking sides. If anything, it’s good to see that everyone is fair game. Former leaders (like Pik Botha and FW de Klerk) are parodied alongside new ones (like Madiba, Mbeki, Motlanthe, and JZ). The generation old enough to remember the apartheid leaders in action were laughing the loudest. All it took was an expression (or a wig) and they erupted in applause at how perfect the impersonations were.
Totally lost
Unfortunately, as a guy too young to remember apartheid (but old enough that people expect me to), I was totally lost through much of the first half of this two-hour show. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of others in their teens and 20s felt the same way. Sure, we could still have a good laugh with the modern characters (including Mrs Petersen, Nowell Fine, and the beloved Evita Bezuidenhout), but the rest of the show seemed like an inside joke that we weren’t privy to.
Then again, perhaps that was the point. Perhaps Adapt or Fly isn’t just about getting some laughs from the people who were there; it’s a history lesson for those of us who weren’t. Uys is making sure we’re all aware of what happened so it will never happen again. That’s what stuck with me most.
Is politics a laughing matter?
Ultimately, the show also raises an interesting question. Yes, politics has become a joke, but does that make it a laughing matter? On the one hand, the answer is yes. We’ve got so many problems today that sometimes the only way for us to survive is to make fun of them. “Now more than ever we need to laugh at our fear,” Uys said in an interview with Peter Tromp. Laughing at our problems is our way of refusing to give them power over us.
But, on the other hand, when you take a closer look at what’s going on in this country, you realise that things are a lot more serious than many of us understand. Just look at what happened with The Spear. Was it just another piece of silly news that came and went like so much news tends to do? Or was this a sign of deeper racial tension that could make our country explode? And let’s not forget that we currently have one of the highest rates of youth unemployment in the world. Is it only a matter of time before the angry masses stage our very own Arab Spring? I guess time will tell.
Not just cheap humour
Still, I think it’s commendable that Pieter-Dirk Uys has the courage to burst our bubbles and speak out about the issues that so many of us choose to ignore. Adapt or Fly isn’t just cheap humour for a good night out, it offers a timely and truthful message about where we were, where we are, and where we could go if we don’t wake up. This is a show that gets into your head (and perhaps into your heart as well). See it now in case his next one is banned. You never know.
Adapt or Fly is showing at the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town until Saturday, 30 June, 2012. Tickets start at R100 and are available from Computicket. There are also special discounts for senior citizens, students, and groups of 10 or more via +27 (0)21 680 3962 or sharon.ward@uct.ac.za
Uys adapts 30 years of satire for new show
– Astrid Stark, Cape Times, 14 June 2012
PIETER-DIRK Uys is the kink in our koeksister. He is the sorghum in our umqombothi beer, and he is as entrenched in our history as a well-soaked rooibos teabag in a tin pot.
I simply can’t do without my dose of giggles from the master of South African political satire.
This time around Uys has dusted off some of his characters from his Adapt or Dye performance from 30 years ago.
Mrs Evita Bezuidenhout makes a brief appearance, as does Pik Botha, the funny Nowell — I am not a racist — Fine, and of course Madiba.
He’s also added the new players on our political stage. The beleaguered ex-ANC youth league leader, the dancing president and Thabo Mbeki, all get a poke with his sharp tongue.
The show starts with Uys impersonating Adolf Hitler. He wastes no time, but straight away points out the similarities between Hitler and our own Julius Malema. It is all very chilling and it sounds like a racy Hollywood thriller as Uys reminds us that we are hanging on to the edge of our continent by our fingernails.
“But what lovely manicured nails!” he adds, softening the blow.
Then Uys laments, “At the end of the war Hitler at least had the decency to commit suicide, which is more than what you can say from our Apartheid leaders.” Uys reminds us to support Juju since he promises us “The goldmine at the end of the rainbow”.
What follows is a nostalgic trip along the memory lane of our political history and Uys’s own phenomenal career as a performer and activist. Uys lays out the rich tapestry that makes up our colourful country.
That he has always chosen to tackle difficult issues such as racism, HIV/Aids, freedom of speech and human rights, head on, is clear from the sheer volume and bravado of his performances and written work over the past 30-odd years.
Uys is having a field day with the inspiration and material supplied by our hotchpotch of eccentric politicians. From Helen Zille to Kgalema — blink and you will miss his presidency — Motlanthe, they all get a turn to dance centre-stage.
The recent police chief saga is dragged into the limelight and I suspect as things develop on the political front over the next month, it will be worked into his performances.
Very funny is Uys’s sketch featuring a converted Piet Koornhof who is now a fierce ANC supporter. “Hypocrisy is the vaseline of political intercourse,” Uys reminds us. A Pik Botha sketch is funny, and chilling, as Botha “categorically” states, “My conscious is clear. I never used it”.
The show is all done in good humour, but the underlying seriousness of the topics and the grim transgressions of our politicians are glaringly obvious.
At times some of the material feels a bit dated which is perhaps inevitable given the time-span and the historical context of some of the work. The script feels as if it can do with just a small injection of something totally fresh and new. However, Uys is still our number one icon when it comes to political and social satire and his work and words commands respect.
It was PW Botha who gave Uys the title Adapt or Dye all those years ago. And ironically, in 2012 Pieter-Dirk Uys found inspiration by a politician who said, “adapt or fly”! We seem to have come full circle, but as Uys says: “As long as we can laugh at our fear, we are still in charge of our future.”
REVIEW: ADAPT OR FLY
– Rory Berry, Your Soapbox, 24 June 2012
Pieter-Dirk Uys is a genius. That could have been my entire review because it sums up the feeling I had when I left the Baxter Theatre last night after the brilliant performance of Adapt or Fly.
Taking the audience on a journey encompassing thirty years of his time doing political satire, Uys shares the highs, lows, challenges and fears he had as he took the journey as a performer championing the cause of the people.
We meet all the colourful characters he has brought to life over the journey thus far. It really is a history lesson, a challenge, a reminder and an inspiration for us all. The way that he shares our history, which at times is pretty awful if we are all honest, is both poetic and intimidating. The parallels he draws between regimes past and present are scary at times, but inspiring as well.
Wit and humour are marvellous weapons against all sorts of oppression and have been used by Tannie Evita and her friends for a while now. What I liked most about the show was it reminds the audience to challenge things and not just sit and accept it. We as South Africans are blessed with a beautiful and magical country that Uys is passionately in love with, as we all should be, and reminds you to fight for her as we go into a new chapter in our little fledgling democracy.
From shower caps to funny hats, his props and character changes are sublime, in fact if he could bottle and sell that skill he would be able to buy South Africa and run it as only Tannie Evita would want it run.
If you don’t go watch this show you will be missing an icon of South African Theatre at his very best. There is some content that might offend sensitive viewers, it carries an age restriction of 13, yet I challenge even those individuals to go with an open mind and heart to be entertained and inspired by Pieter-Dirk Uys.
The Baxter has done well to host this individual once again, and I truly hope the production sells out.
Adapt or Fly — An Uncomfortable Truth
– Clifford Graham, Artslink, 14 June 2012
I don’t normally title my reviews, perhaps I’m avoiding memories of some of the Nazi like sub-editors I’ve had dealings with. But if I were to assume that role and title this review, it would be An Uncomfortable Truth. I can think of no more an accurate description of Pieter-Dirk Uys’s latest, show Adapt of Fly. Yes I laugh, heartily and often, but still I squirm in my seat. This man in his various guises is expressing every fear, spoken and unspoken about our new South Africa. It’s as though Uys takes on our collective fear and scepticism, vocalising it as satire.
Back in the days when Wonderboom was a pot plant, I can remember going to the Market Theatre in Johannesburg at some ridiculous hour of the night to see what I thought was simply underground comedy by an underground comedian. Little did I know that I was witnessing something that would become an iconic feature in our South African political landscape. Adapt or Dye as the show was then known, somehow expressed everything we were thinking. The words Ons Land, Ons Volk, Onslaught resonated. By some miracle Pieter-Dirk Uys became acceptable as a satirist.
The Nationalist cabinet of the day, with some exceptions, did have a sense of humour. As long as Tannie Evita Bezuidenhout was making the all-white population laugh, PW Botha would turn a blind eye (and finger). But then, as now in Adapt or Fly, many an uncomfortable truth was expressed. There was however, a difference. In the early eighties, The Market Theatre was becoming a haven of free thought against an ever tightening grip by the thought police on our media and indeed, our everyday life. It was a place where there was a definite feeling that one day there would be a release from the madness of apartheid. One day it would end, for good or bad, by fair means or foul, there was light at the end of the tunnel.
What I witnessed last evening was Adapt or Dye, brought up to date as Adapt or Fly, expressing truths past and present, without the benefit of optimism. We have a democracy, we lack democrats. We have a freely elected government, we lack governance. Pieter-Dirk Uys (and I hope he agrees with me) expresses these thoughts freely (while he still can), all the while making us laugh, and laugh we do. He simply has the gift that makes him stand out in the current satirist collective. Even after some thirty odd years in the business, he has not lost the ability to express the uncomfortable truth while making us laugh. Lest I spoil the impact, I don’t give out too much of the content of the show here, but the opening few minutes of the show give me a clear and very uncomfortable insight as to just where his thoughts are.
All the while incisive, witty and often poignant, his characters are believable. We know them, love them and hate them. They’re all there, PW Botha, Pik Botha, FW de Klerk, Piet Koornhof (everyone’s favourite), Nowell Fine and die hard Nationalist, Tannie Evita Bezuidenhout. With the addition of a few of the current crop, Adapt or Fly will do just that. I leave thoroughly entertained, even inspired, but a small voice in the pit of my stomach recognises that history, however buoyant, will never be truly learned from.
Uys takes no prisoners in his latest political evisceration
– Peter Tromp, The Next 48 Hours, 14 June 2012
One has come to expect a pattern from Pieter-Dirk Uys with his shows in recent years. There is no question they were successful artistic products, with Uys managing to connect with his target audience and perhaps even managing to expand their perceptions.
These personal and personable state of the nation addresses were a little too tempered at times though, as if the satirist went out of his way to balance the negative with the positive. It’s as if he didn’t want his audience to leave on too much of a low.
There is no such pandering in ‘Adapt Or Fly’. The man is once again in incendiary form, perhaps because the stakes are higher this time around.
There is no mistaking the desperation of the message: South Africa needs to get its act together, rediscover its moral core or risk history making us its farcical bitch.
Uys appeared visibly nervous at the start on opening night and perhaps this is understandable, in hindsight at least: he was about to release some seriously nuclear truth bombs on the current political landscape, one that has in recent times become a fraught one for artists expressing their views on the political leadership in this country.
As ever, Uys is an equal opportunity lampooner, so as this is a thirty year anniversary of sorts of his first politically themed show, ‘Adapt Or Dye’, some of his old apartheid adversities come in for some fresh lashings, while current grotesques doing the headlines undergo similar treatment.
Uys is never better when he sends up the divisive figures of the past, perhaps because, as he himself admits, they are easy targets and it allows him to be as over the top as he wants. That’s not to say it is a form of self indulgence on his part. The writing is too tight for that to be the case, especially in his lampooning of Pik Botha and an especially vicious mockery of Piet Koornhof, both of which have to be seen to be believed.
These portrayals are exhilarating because of the connect that Uys wants to establish with the present. We are headed in the same direction, he suggests, if we are not mindful of our civic responsibilities of holding those in power accountable.
Of course not everyone is as brave as Uys is, but the way he riles one up, you might just believe you are. This is an artist that is still integral to our local cultural sphere, even at age 66, and I for one hope he never stops telling truth to power.
Pieter Dirk Uys’ Adapt or Fly: a Must-See
– Kelly-Eve Koopman, What’s On In Cape Town, 13 June 2012
Pieter Dirk Uys describes humour as a “weapon of mass distraction”. Armed with razor sharp wit, infallible irony and a posse of parodies of political figures, Uys’ brand of militant satire exacts guerrilla warfare on our complex socio-political history, and bulldozes with ruthless precision through the barricades of what is allowed to be said about our equally complex socio-political present.
Adapt or Fly is a work of technical mastery. Not merely a set of poignant pastiches of politicians, the show develops thematically to express a political insight that is a revelatory experience. Uys creates links between South Africa’s past and its present that are chilling and shocking.
On a minimalist set, Uys takes the audience through a side-splitting yet thought-provoking tour of our turbulent timeline. He agilely somersaults through the spectrum of the aged architects of Apartheid with satire that exceeds mere stereotype. Yes, the evocative embodiments, clownish gestures and elastic facial contortions he uses to deploy these political dinosaurs are enormously amusing, and yet they are so accurate and his text is so thoughtful that the older audience members in particular reported goose-bumps as they were confronted with these ghosts from the darkest recesses of our shared past.
But it wasn’t all ruthless parodies of pre-democratic ‘dooses’. I found Uys’ embodiment of ordinary civilians such as the popular Mrs Petersen particularly poignant. Uys’ female impersonations are quite simply brilliant and this ridiculous, vivacious Cape Flats “auntie” had the audience rolling with laughter at her antics yet also had the power to evoke a stilted and self-conscious silence and even tears. Such is Uys’ utter control that he can skip with ease along the tight rope linking tragedy and comedy.
The title of the show is a parodied reference to the Apartheid slogan “Adapt or Die” and Uys’ cast of ‘dicks and dictators’ has been chosen specifically for their combined impact. Individually, they are breathtakingly good satire. United their power is greater: they nudge the audience towards engaging in broader political perspectives than are immediately physically presented on stage. The individual elements come together to create a work of post-modern pastiche; an engaging and insightful and surprisingly dark sociological study of the progress of pre-democratic to post-post democratic South Africa.
As Uys shifts between his characters he stitches them together with pertinent personal anecdotes, inter-textual links and quick, quirky, quips such as “Hypocrisy has always been the Vaseline of political intercourse”. And the man has his finger on the pulse. The morning following the show the headlines were full of the news that ex-police chief Bheki Cele had been replaced by Mangwashi Victoria Phiyega. The audience at Adapt or Fly already knew: indeed, Phiyega had been one of Uys’ characters (though he confessed he had written out her name on his hand in case he forgot it).
He claims that poking fun at Nelson Mandela is as paradoxical as representing Mother Theresa with a dildo… yet he did allow us a glimpse of a spot-on impression of Madiba. I was surprised however that Uys never directly imitated figures such as Mbeki, Cele, Zuma, Zille and Malema. While through narration and peripheral characters he liberally critiqued contemporary figures and their related social issues he never physically parodied today’s kingpins. This struck me as a little odd, but perhaps he had dismissed them as too easy.
As his anecdotes and glib self-conscious references make apparent, Uys is of course critically aware of his own status as a white previously-privileged Afrikaans male. And though the show is flawlessly provocative and dangerously subversive in textual content and commentary I couldn’t help but feel that this self-consciousness made him a bit PC when it came to representation. Presumably racial representation is still just a little too sticky.
Generally though Uys’ brand of satire is deliciously politically incorrect, while thoroughly fair and impeccably informed. The most popular example of his ability to address a scope of issues through a single voice is of course Evita Bezuidenhout. And naturally this deliciously decadent doyenne of all things controversial steals the show in a captivating cameo.
Adapt or Fly is a thrilling and thought-provoking roller-coaster ride through our tempestuous timeline and an accessible must-see for all and any, whether tourist, South African citizen or — ahem — ex-citizen. Pieter Dirk Uys’ sketches provoke thought and debate long after the house lights have come up.
Pieter-Dirk Uys’ Adapt or Fly runs at the Baxter Theatre 13 – 30 June 2012.