July 4, 1989, Eersterust
Sickened by the violence in Baputhatswana, I stayed in my room most of yesterday.
But extraordinary things of a different kind occurred when I arrived at the Township of Eersterust, a “mixed color” location. Paul Jacobs introduced me to a group of actors rehearsing Shakespeare’s Macbeth. I met Dot Veltman, Jacobs’ theater collaborator. I talked with Neville Nash, a prominent South African singer, as well as a poet named Johnny Mash and several other performers. Jacobs said that sixty percent of the Black South African television actors have been trained at the Eersterust Performing Arts Council.
Jacobs himself then presented a solo performance. He began by shouting at an imaginary child that he was late coming home because he had been detained and beaten by the police, which he then reenacted. He became the child, now in a shebeen that was about to be knocked down, after which the family would be forcibly removed from the Cape to another location. He ended by standing before us, tears streaming down his face, hands at his side, shouting that he was a man, a man! Why was he being treated like this? What was to become of a place that cannibalized its inhabitants?
Once finished he said he would be “most grateful” if I could help him improve his work. Moved to tears of my own, I said truthfully that he is one of the strongest performers I’ve ever seen. He replied that he been aware for some time that “God has given me talent” but he could do more for his country and people working where he did.
In a lifetime of theater, I have rarely been exposed to talent like that, much less coupled with such idealism. I will always miss the man.