Stage: Pieter Odendaal’s award winning play Droomwerk coming home to Cape Town

Pieter Odendaal’s award winning and acclaimed play Droomwerk will be staged in Cape Town, at Suidoosterfees (April 26-30), followed by a season at the Avalon Auditorium (Homecoming Centre, ex-Fugard), from May 8-11, 2024. The award winning Odendaal is a poet, playwright, translator and editor. I saw the superb play which excavates generational and historical trauma, which is always rooted in the personal, at Woordfees in Stellenbosch. The play was sparked by Odendaal’s lineage and complex heritage which includes his grandfather – an apartheid senator in the 1970s – and his ancestral grandmother, Diana of Madagascar, who was brought to the Cape as a slave in the late 17th century. The narrative is set in a mental hospital and dangles between dream and reality, madness and how we navigate mental health – the wrangle between Western psychiatry over indigenous knowledge- and the possibility for reconciliation and healing – out of rupture and loss. The design is breathtaking and the company of actors is exceptional. Read on for more. Info supplied:

Odendaal’s play “Droomwerk” coming home to Cape Town

Petrus dreams about his ancestors in a mental hospital. His ancestral grandmother, Diana van Madagascar, walks on the seabed back home. His grandfather Piet, an apartheid senator, relives his speeches on his deathbed. Can Petrus bring reconciliation to his family, or is he too sick to distinguish between reality and dream?

The poet Pieter Odendaal’s play Droomwerk was awarded the ATKV Woordveertjie for Best New Drama Text and nominated for the Hertzog Prize for Drama. Herschelle Benjamin calls Droomwerk a must-see, “a moving family drama with tremendous emotional impact, a spiritual event.”

The acclaimed Cape Town director Kanya Viljoen is responsible for directing and design, with Lwanda Sindaphi as the associate director. The cast is equally impressive: Jill Levenberg from Suidooster and Ellen Pakkies-fame, the exciting young actor Ben Albertyn, the theater legend Gerben Kamper, Noluthando ‘Tyrish’ Mili, and Johann Vermaak. Levenberg has received multiple nominations for her performance in Droomwerk, and won the 2023 Woordtrofee for Best Supporting Actor at Woordfees. After various runs at festivals, Droomwerk is finally coming to Cape Town!

Droomwerk is based on Odendaal’s exploration of his heritage as a white Afrikaans-speaking man with slave ancestry. The main characters are loosely based on the writer, his grandfather (an apartheid senator in the 1970s), and his ancestral grandmother, Diana of Madagascar, who was brought to the Cape as a slave in the late 17th century. The play examines the roots of intergenerational trauma and questions the hegemony of Western psychiatry over indigenous practices to address mental disorders. Saartjies Botha writes that Droomwerk constitutes “a writing towards healing, a rediscovery of heritage that transports you to the uncharted vulnerability of historical trauma.”

Droomwerk will show at Suidoosterfees (April 26-30, 2024. Tickets on Webtickets), followed by a run at the Avalon Auditorium (Homecoming Centre) from May 8-112024. Tickets at Quicket.

 Droomwerk is also available in publication from Protea Boekhuis.

Odendaal is a poet, playwright, translator, and editor. His debut collection, asof geen berge ooit hier gewoon het nie (Tafelberg), was awarded the Ingrid Jonker Prize in 2019. He was the executive director of InZync Poetry in Stellenbosch and recently obtained his PhD in creative writing from the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. He currently teaches Creative Writing at NWU in Potchefstroom.

Tickets for Suidoosterfees: https://www.webtickets.co.za/v2/Event.aspx?itemid=1542063628

Tickets for Homecoming Centre: https://www.quicket.co.za/events/256893-droomwerk#/

✳ Sponsored content. Featured image- Droomwerk – Ben Albertyn and Tyrish Mili. Pic © Xolani Tulumani. Supplied.