Sold Down the River

We had, of course, heard of André Maritz’s play and his company of play-actors long before they got to Zeerust (Oom Schalk Lourens said).

For they had travelled a long road. Some of the distance they went by train. Other parts of the way they travelled by mule-cart or ox-wagon. They visited all the dorps from the Cape – where they had started from – to Zeerust in the Transvaal, where Han­nekie Roodt left the company. She had an important part in the play, as we knew even before we saw her name in big letters on the posters.

André Maritz had been somewhat thoughtless, that time, in his choice of a play for his company to act in. The result was that there were some places that he had to go away from at a pace rather faster than could be made by even a good mule-team. Naturally, this sort of thing led to André Maritz’s name getting pretty well known throughout the country – and without his having to stick up posters, either.

The trouble did not lie with the acting. There was not very much wrong with that. But anybody could have told André Ma­ritz that he should never have toured the country with that kind of a play. There was a negro in it, called Uncle Tom, who was supposed to be very good and kind-hearted. André Maritz, with his face blackened, took that part. And there was also a white man in the play, named Simon Legree. He was the kind of white man who, if he was your neighbour, would think it funny to lead the Government tax-collector to the aardvark-hole that you were hiding in.

It seems that André Maritz had come across a play that had been popular on the other side of the sea; and he translated it into Afrikaans and adapted it to fit in with South African traditions. André Maritz’s fault was that he hadn’t adapted the play enough.

The company made this discovery in the very first Free State dorp they got to. For, when they left that town, André Maritz had one of his eyes blackened, and not just with burnt cork.

André Maritz adapted his play a good deal more, immediately after that. He made Uncle Tom into a much less kind-hearted negro. And he also made him steal chickens.

The only member of the company that the public of the backveld seemed to have any time for was the young man who acted Simon Legree.

Thus it came about that we heard of André Maritz’s company when they were still far away, touring the highveld. Winding their play-actors’ road northwards, past koppies and through vlak­tes, and by bluegums and willows.

After a few more misunderstandings with the public, André Maritz so far adapted the play to South African conditions as to make Uncle Tom threaten to hit Topsy with a brandy bottle.

The result was that, by the time the company came to Zeerust, even the church elder, Theunis van Zyl, said that there was much in the story of Uncle Tom that could be considered instructive.

True, there were still one or two little things, Elder van Zyl de­clared, that did not perhaps altogether accord with what was best in our outlook. For instance, it was not right that we should be made to feel so sentimental about the slave-girl as played by Hannekie Roodt. The elder was referring to that powerful scene in which Hannekie Roodt got sold down the river by Simon Legree. We couldn’t understand very clearly what it meant to be sold down the river. But from Hannekie Roodt’s acting we could see that it must be the most awful fate that could overtake anybody.

She was so quiet. She did not speak in that scene. She just picked up the small bundle containing her belongings. Then she put her hand up to her coat collar and closed over the lapel in front, even though the weather was not cold.

Yet there were still some people in Zeerust who, after they had attended the play on the first night, thought that that scene could be improved on. They said that when Hannekie Roodt walked off the stage for the last time, sold down the river, and carrying the bundle of her poor possessions tied up in a red-spotted rag, a few of her mistress’s knives and forks could have been made to drop out of the bundle.

As I have said, André Maritz’s company eventually arrived in Zeerust. They came by mule-cart from Slurry, where the railway ended in those days. They stayed at the Marico Hotel, which was a few doors from Elder van Zyl’s house. It was thus that André Maritz met Deborah, the daughter of the elder. That was one thing that occasioned a good deal of talk. Especially as we believed that even if Hannekie Roodt was not actually married to André Maritz in the eyes of the law, the two of them were nevertheless as nearly husband and wife as it is possible for play-actors to be, since they are known to be very unenlightened in such matters.

The other things that gave rise to much talk had to do with what happened on the first night of the staging of the play in Zeerust. André Maritz hired the old hall adjoining the mill. The hall had last been used two years before.

The result was that, after the curtain had gone up for the first act of André Maritz’s play, it was discovered that a wooden platform above the stage was piled high with fine flour that had sifted through the ceiling from the mill next door. The platform had been erected by the stage company that had given a performance in the hall two years previously. That other company had used the platform to throw down bits of paper from to look like snow, in a scene in which a girl gets thrust out into the world with her baby in her arms.

At the end of the first act, when the curtain was lowered, André Maritz had the platform swept. But until then, with all that flour coming down, it looked as though he and his company were moving about the stage in a Cape mist. Each time an actor took a step forward or spoke too loudly – down would come a shower of fine meal. Afterwards the players took to standing in one place as much as possible, to avoid shaking down the flour – and in fear of losing their way in the mist, too, by the look of things.

Naturally, all this confused the audience a good deal. For, with the flour sifting down on to the faces of the actors, it became difficult, after a little while, to tell which were the white people and which the negroes. Towards the end of the first act Uncle Tom, with a layer of flour covering his make-up, looked just as white as Simon Legree.

During the time when the curtain was lowered, however, the flour was swept from the platform and the actors repaired their faces very neatly, so that when the next act began there was nothing anymore to remind us of that first unhappy incident.

Later on I was to think that it was a pity that the consequences of that second unhappy incident, that of André Maritz’s meeting with the daughter of Elder van Zyl, could not also have been brushed away so tidily.

The play was nevertheless very successful. And I am sure that in the crowded hall that night there were very few dry eyes when Hannekie Roodt played her great farewell scene. When she pick­ed up her bundle and got ready to leave, having been sold down the river, you could see by her stillness that her parting from her lover and her people would be for ever. No one who saw her act that night would ever forget the tragic moment when she put her hand up to her coat collar and closed over the lapels in front, even though – as I have said – the weather was not cold.

The applause at the end lasted for many minutes.

The play got the same enthusiastic reception night after night. Meanwhile, off the stage, there were many stories linking De­borah van Zyl’s name with André Maritz’s.

“They say that Deborah van Zyl is going to be an actress now,” Flip Welman said when several of us were standing smoking in the hardware store. “She is supposed to be getting Hannekie Roodt’s part.”

“We all know that Deborah van Zyl has been talking for a long while about going on the stage,” Koos Steyn said. “And maybe this is the chance she was been waiting for. But I can’t see her in Hannekie Roodt’s part for very long. I think she will rather be like the girl in that other play we saw here a few years ago – the one with the baby.”

Knowing what play-actors were, I could readily picture De­borah van Zyl being pushed out into the world, carrying a child in her arms, and with the white-paper snow fluttering about her.

As for Hannekie Roodt, she shortly afterwards left André Maritz’s company of play-actors. She arranged with Koos Steyn to drive her, with her suitcases, to Slurry station. Koos explained to me that he was a married man and so he could not allow it to be said of him, afterwards, that he had driven alone in a cart with a play-actress. That was how it came about that I rode with them.

But Koos Steyn need have had no fears of the kind that he hinted at. Hannekie Roodt spoke hardly a word. At close hand she looked different from what she had done on the stage. Her hair was scraggy. I also noticed that her teeth were uneven and that there was loose skin at her throat.

Yet, there was something about her looks that was not without a strange sort of beauty. And in her presence there was that which made me think of great cities. There were also marks on her face from which you could tell that she had travelled a long road. A road that was longer than just the thousand miles from the Cape to the Marico.

Hannekie Roodt was going away from André Maritz. And during the whole of that long journey by mule-cart she did not once weep. I could not help but think that it was true what people said about play-actors. They had no real human feelings. They could act on the stage and bring tears to your eyes, but they themselves had no emotions.

We arrived at Slurry station. Hannekie Roodt thanked Koos Steyn and paid him. There was no platform there in those days. So Hannekie had to climb up several steps to get on to the balcony of the carriage. It was almost as though she were getting on to the stage. We lifted up her suitcases for her.

Koos Steyn and I returned to the mule-cart. Something made me look back over my shoulder. That was my last glimpse of Hannekie Roodt. I saw her put her hand up to her coat collar. She closed over the lapels in front. The weather was not cold.