A much anticipated play at Suidoosterfees in Cape Town is Die Uitweg, adapted from Kafka’s absurdist short story, Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor [written around 1915]. The play, with physical theatre, clowning and music is directed by Sjaka Septembir and stars Carlo Daniels. It features music by Gertjie Besselsen who is on stage as a second performer. The process of taking the story from page to stage has been extensive. Mathew Kalil adapted the Kafka story into a play. Lize Mulder translated the play adaption to Afrikaans and then Shantel Moses took the text into Afrikaaps. Die Uitweg is on May 1, 2, 3, 2025 at Suidoosterfees at Artscape. Septembir and Daniels provide insights:
TheCapeRobyn: Die Uitweg – how would you translate that into English – The Way Out? The play has been adapted from Kafka’s unfinished short story Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor. Blumfeld is in my reading, looking for a way out/exit from his lonely existence, in which he is not appreciated and seen by those around him. He is a cog in the wheel at work – invisible?
Sjaka Septembir: The Way Out is the English name Matthew Kalil gave it. More than a decade ago I sat next to Matthew at a casting in Cape Town. I saw he was reading Kafka. I love Kafka so I started talking to Matthew. We both share a love for Kafka and we started talking about how many gems have not been made into stage plays. So that’s how the first rendition of The Way Out got its life. Shoot ahead to Covid. I was on a farm in the Free State and I wrote a proposal to the NAC, that they accepted. It was Covid, we had ten days in which to make the play and then we had to film it for the NAC. Now we have received funding from Suidoosterfees and AK21 to rework the play and eventually play it in front of a live audience. This whole proses has taken a good 15 years, from meeting Matthew to here.
Yes, a Way Out of his lonely life, but it is also clear that it is his choices that have led him to here. He is always arguing himself out of taking any risks, he never takes a gamble on something because it might lead to failure. In his life there is no room for play.
Carlo Daniels: As you mentioned, this is an adaptation of Kafka’s Blumfeld an Elderly Bachelor which is unfinished. The fact that it is unfinished adds even more to the story and to the character in focus Blumfeld which in our play our protagonist is Booysen a man from Cape Flats. They are obviously from two different worlds physically but internally form the same.
The Way Out/ Die Uitweg as a title for our adaptation is perfectly captured by Matthew Kalil and Sjaka Septembir, although I am hesitant in using a word like ‘perfectly’ in context of the themes we are dealing with. One wonders often about Franz Kafka an what he himself was dealing for his stories are most times of this nature, of loneliness, being out-casted, about isolation, feelings of giving up and not giving up about finding the way out of the problem of simply existing and having a dream, the problem between the tangible and intangible thigs. Yet Kafka himself is a good example of a way out through his will power and CREATIVITY. So this gives great insight into the impulse of actually all of us, in telling this story. The story always on the face of it is very humorous but one does realize after a while that it (Booysen’s isolation) is not so funny anymore and that we, need to find a way to solve a problem.
TCR: Leading from the above – by translating the story into Afrikaaps, you are deliberately framing the story in Cape Town. The story was written around 1915. We are in 2025. Is Blumfeld still named Blumfeld? Can you talk about the implications of the story – your adaption – for South Africa, the world right now in 2025?
SS: Blumfeld is changed to Booysen. I am personally fascinated how we as assaults often stop ‘playing’. This was highlighted when I read The Power of Fun by Catherine Price. We do not only stop playing but we are unable to have true fun. One of the pillars of true fun is that it happens between people. It also often involves the body, for example dancing. The body. This connects with the findings in the book The Good Life by Schultz and Waldinger. Where this long running Harvard study shows that our relationships with other people are vital to our happiness. Our physical relationship – not over screens, and also not interrupted by screens. As the quote goes: “We need the shit of others to grow.” Booysen does everything he can to avoid ‘the shit of others’. Which is short sighted and sad.
I believe our cellphones and screens are acting in the same way as Blumfeld’s ordered, boxed in life, functions. That’s why more and more people in our ‘connected’ world is lonely. You have to put you phone aside and throw yourself into the unpredictable bouncing balls of life.
CD: Our protagonist is Booysen and our adaptation is set on the Cape Flats. There is a natural connection since I (Carlo Daniels) am from the Cape Flats born and raised in Mitchell’s Plain. So, it immediately makes the character and the world in which we play easier to identify with and I am sure that the audience won’t take too long to get into the world since we are playing in Cape Town at the Suidoosterfees but this will be the case anywhere in South Africa. We are rich in culture and how interesting to look at Booysen, just a man from somewhere in South Africa going through his journey within the context of RSA today. The story was written in the 1900s and now set in modern South Africa which naturally adds a lot in terms of the political climate, the pressures of surviving with little money, poverty, metal health and stress etc. These are some of the things that plagues our country and Booysen is not excluded. He is just a person trying to cope with his personal situation while there are many out there who’s knows these circumstances and might have some suggestion of how we can find a way out, perhaps together.
This story is human. Although very Cape Flats and South African it is a universal story as many of Kafka’s work deals with oppression and philosophy. It rebels against systems of the world but mostly from a room, mind and spirit of a single character caught between two poles of the self and the obligation of the systems of the world.
TCR: For your production, Matthew Kalil translated it from a story to play. Lize Mulder translated it to Afrikaans and then Shantel Moses took it to Afrikaaps. Can you talk about the process of taking it from short story to play – bringing in physical theatre and a musical score?
SS: I mentioned above how the idea came about. Matthew had a bucket list and on the list was to act in a play. So after meeting him at the casting we took that story, which Matthew was fond of, and I took him through a six month process. He wrote the text as we work-shopped the short story. Matthew performed what I would call the first draft of the play. He had achieved his goal and had no further interest in developing or performing the piece. I always felt the play had power and needed to be seen by more people. I was looking for an opportunity to do so, and I felt that it would be unique if we could do Kafka in Cape Town in Afrikaaps. Eventually it is happening! For Matthew it was also an enriching process and it lead him to write a great book on screenwriting: The Three Wells. When you go through such a process, where you have to improv to create something, it makes you put your finger on the pulse of life. It’s scary yet invigorating.
TCR: Can you talk about how the story has been taken from page to stage as a play in terms of the narrative and what you have foregrounded – Booysen’s apartment and the mad bouncing balls and his work at the linen factory?
SS: I love physical theatre, again it is a way of people to connect with their bodies and play; it is healthy. In this form of theatre we can – in a filmic way – create spaces. So yes, we see Booysen/Blumfeld at his office, his commute to and from work and we see his flat. It is necessary to show his routine before we break it.
CD: From the original we kept all the story’s original elements: his life at work in a linen factory, the travelling home, his apartment and his trying to make ends meet and his dreams of maybe getting a dog as a companion. The story is in essence about the bouncing balls which follows him everywhere and which he just cannot escape. The threat it poses to his image in the outside world: at work and the surrounding area. For years Booysen could find comfort in his isolation and not showing his vulnerable side to anyone outside. There is quite a big sensitive to Booysen which we learn of in very subtle ways though he masks it very well with doing almost everything right and on time. He is almost a mirror image of perfection (as a starting point of the play), but soon the balls which he himself is not sure of where they originate from. He does suspect that they come from the outside, that maybe someone is trying to play a bad trick on him, but after a while it doesn’t matter, now they are his problem and his cross to bear. Absurdist plays and stories have strong philosophical commentary and we hope not to try to be too clever but to tell the story of Kafka and of ourselves to share it and hopefully we can talk about a response after.
TCR: I take it that the thrust of this production is physical theatre and music? So although it is in Afrikaaps, it transcends language and if people don’t understand the language, they will be able to access the story via physical theatre (clowning?) and music?
SS: I would say so. It’s a powerful shared experience. As an example, I performed a show of my poetry a few years back. I used music and physical theatre. After our one show to French speaking Europeans waited for us backstage, they loved the show. It was the music and movement which held them for an hour although they could not understand a word of my poetry. That’s why I love this playful style. It speaks to us through our bodies.
CD: We do approach this work through physical theatre, mime, clowning and music. So I think even without the text (which is in Afrikaaps) the audience will have access to the inner world of Booysen through the physical action, the images, the movement and the music which to me are very important ways of expression and not just text. So I think all and all it evokes imagination and other things of that realm.
TCR: Can you talk about the absurdist and dark humour in the story and how this manifests in your production – with clowning and physical theatre and Booysen and the plastic bouncing balls – which I do not want to plot spoil too much – but it is hyper absurdist, very dark and funny?
SS: Dark humour is my favourite kind. Maybe that’s from my German roots? I love weaving elements of comedy into my work. In this case I feel this story is tragic, yet there is still space for the audience to enjoy and laugh, especially when the balls come into play. When I read the short story I had no idea off the twist and I wish we could advertise the show without giving the twist away. But even so, it remains magical.
CD: It strikes purely absurd when the balls arrive, yet the world we play in is quite mundane. One does realize very quickly that Booysen can be a clown, there is something very funny in his obscurely tragic situation, but it too complicated to label and so we don’t label for the sake of comfort. The truth is he is a clown, we (the makers of the story) love clowning and clown and we know that they are complex so it is a chance to delve inside of the clown. Absurdity in a clown’s world makes perfect sense, it is immediately understandable that such a thing would happen and can happen to Booysen because he is a clown and we expect him to feel happy, lonely, trapped, to fall on his face, to win, to loose, to cry and maybe even to fart while at it. This is obviously things we can do and feel too.
TCR: Anything else about this play, your production?
SS: Gertjie Besselsen from Mr Cat and the Jackle is an amazing artist to work with. I think he works so well partly because he studied acting. The second thing is he can play so many different instruments. If he was a Springbok he would be like a Cheslin Kolbe.
CD: I want to people to be up for the challenge: to come to Suidoosterfees and help us to find ‘THE WAY OUT.’
✳ Featured image: Die Uitweg: Sjaka Septembir (director), Gertjie Besselsen (music) and Carlo Daniels (performer), a theatrical adaption of Kafka’s short story Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor. The play is premièring in Cape Town at Suidoosterfees, May 1-3, 2025. Pic supplied.
