Die Uitweg, a magical, extraordinary play, premiered last week (May 1, 2, 3, 2025) in Cape Town at Suidoosterfees, Artscape, performed by Carlo Daniels, directed by Sjaka Septembir, with Gertjie Besselsen on stage, making/performing his original music. There are moments when one experiences a play which is innately special and which moves and inspires. This is Die Uitweg.
Die Uitweg (The Way Out) is an adaptation of a Franz Kafka short story, Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor [written around 1915]. The unfinished short story, as far as I can ascertain has not been adapted into a play – anywhere in the world.
The language for this adaptation is Afrikaaps – the Cape Town dialect of Afrikaans. The process of taking the play from short story to play and then the stage was extensive and involved considerable layering, which is evidenced in this richly nuanced work. 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. For insights into the genesis of the play, from the Kafka story text to the stage, performed in Afrikaaps, see interview with Septembir and Daniels: https://thecaperobyn.co.za/interview-staging-die-uitweg-adapted-from-kafkas-blumfeld-an-elderly-bachelor/]
In the play, Die Uitweg, Blumfeld from the Kafka story is now Booysen, a man from the Cape Flats and he is looking for a way out from his humdrum existence of working for thirty years at a linen factory. He is first in and last out of the door. He schleps up and down to his apartment and stresses over whether he should get a dog. There is absurdist stuff which happens. I do not want to plot spoil, so moving along.
I found this play exhilarating and inspirational. Kafka story is rather bleak but in the hands of this team, Booysen becomes empowered in his own story as he plays his way through the absurdity of his life. Septembir muses in our interview: “I am personally fascinated how we as adults often stop ‘playing’.” We have lost our ability to have fun. In Die Uitweg, Booysen learns to play again, despite the baffling and absurd situation he finds himself, in which there seems to be no way out. In this ruptured world, this is something relatable. How do we continue to play and find moments of release and escape – never mind physically – but emotionally? The wrecking ball of life becomes metaphorical for Booysen. Maybe it is all in the mind and not real – and therein lies the hope of a way out.
Daniels is brilliant. He deserves a best actor award for this tour de force performance – on a chess board of life, articulating each gasp of breath, limb by limb, in and out of a zinc bucket. This is intensely physically charged theatre with moments of clown – but impeccably articulated by Septembir in the director’s seat (best director award please). I loved the props which in the Kafka short story got up to tricks but in this play, they become objects and containers in the tick tock of time. Time is a potent leitmotif. Sorry, I am being cryptic again as I don’t want to plot spoil. In our interview, Daniels speaks about Kafka’s grappling with “tangible and intangible things”. His Booysen manifests this as he dances around the tangible and intangible, the real and imagined. His performance is a wow.
Visually, it is stylish in its stripped down aesthetic. The narrowness of Booysen’s life is imaged by the framing and containing of the space with a chess board/game like mat. Besselsen, performing the musical score on stage, is in a suit and like Booysen, he must clock in and out, until he finds a way out, amidst the fluttering of time – getting cryptic again.
I was surprised and charmed by the adaptation – flipping the Kafka short story around in terms of narrative and domestic and public spaces – dramatically inspired. There is nothing “obvious” in the choices for this production.
Septembir muses in our interview: “I believe our cellphones and screens are acting in the same way as Blumfeld’s/Booysen’s ordered, boxed in life, of functioning. That’s why more and more people in our ‘connected’ world are lonely. You have to put you phone aside and throw yourself into the unpredictable bouncing balls of life.” Septembir is a poet and as director, working with the astonishing visceral performance of Daniels, he infuses this play with a magical lyricism, which transcends its darkness.
Die Uitweg is in a category of its own, seamlessly intertwining physical theatre, narrative and live music in a play which invites one to take deep breaths and be present in the story. The production is invigorating, despite its dark and absurdist material. It left me smiling and hopeful. Booysen’s story is our collective story. Can we find a way out? Let us play that we can.
Note: The text is in Afrikaaps, but with the physical theatre, language is not a barrier, although one might miss linguistic inferences. See interview: https://thecaperobyn.co.za/interview-staging-die-uitweg-adapted-from-kafkas-blumfeld-an-elderly-bachelor/] Press release here: https://thecaperobyn.co.za/stage-die-uitweg-directed-by-sjaka-septembir-starring-carlo-daniels-premieres-at-suidoosterfees/
✳ Featured image: Carlo Daniels in Die Uitweg, adapted for the stage, from Kafka’s unfinished short story, Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor. The production was on in Cape Town at Artscape, May 1, 2, 3, 2025, Suidoosterfees. Direction by Sjaka Septembir. Photo: Supplied.
