Hinterland

Really, the timing could not have been any more perfect for the run of Hinterland at the Theatre on the Square. Like the nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island and The China Syndrome perfect. Remember that?

Lately, the newspapers have been full of headlines about the student protests leading up to the recent removal of the Cecil John Rhodes statue from the University of Cape Town campus, tentative plans to transfer the Paul Kruger statue from Church Square in Pretoria to the Voortrekker Monument, and the vandalism of Queen Victoria's statue in Port Elizabeth as well as other statues in The Company Gardens in Cape Town that depict historical figures active in politics before the era of the born-frees. Even Gandhi FFS!

some of the recent headlines

At the very least, the recent actions have proven that Rhodes and his legacy are still hot topics in the South Africa of 2015.

The play is about the (fictional) meeting of two giants of South Africa that could have changed the course of history. Deeply controversial at present and more than a hundred years after his death, Cecil John Rhodes still enjoys fame and notoriety, as Southern Africa’s arch-imperialist - while the multi-talented man of letters, Sol Plaatje, was one of the ANC’s founding fathers in 1912.

Sipho Mahlatshana as Plaatje and David Dukas as Rhodes

The plot of Hinterland has the two men, Plaatje and Rhodes, meeting while Kimberley is besieged during the Anglo-Boer War. In the autumn of his life, Rhodes, the king of diamonds, hires the young Plaatje as his new secretary and the two develop the unlikeliest of friendships, full of humour, warmth and pathos. But the country is changing and as Plaatje’s political career begins to dawn, the two men become set on a collision course which will change their lives.

I would have been totally in the dark if I had seen this play only three short years ago. But now, after extensive reading coupled with visits to the Anglo-Boer Battlefields, Kimberley and Cape Town which all figured prominently in the story, I probably understood 99.9% of what was said.

I had been to Groote Schuur and the Rhodes Memorial in Cape Town and am fairly knowledgeable about the life and times of Cecil John Rhodes thanks to my reading The Covenant. Unfortunately, I was completely unfamiliar with the play's other main character, Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje. Luckily there was a mini-biography of Plaatje in the Playbill which I read before the curtain rose.

Educated in a mission school near Barkly West, Plaatje was conversant in eight languages including English and Dutch and he was widely regarded as one of the most influential black journalists of his time. He was a founder member and the first secretary of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), the forerunner of the African National Congress (ANC).

But this was not some boring history lesson. The play was funny, tragic, surprising and immensely entertaining. Not to mention educational and extremely timely.  

Hinterland runs through April 25.