The Badge

Written by Kaburu
Wednesday, 14 December 2011 14:25

A now thankfully deceased political party who had an odd notion of what a free press was supposed to be decided that it was time to elevate the arts, Pretoria, which was still what the capital city of our land was called at the time. And so they built a monument to the arts – a vast, monolithic edifice that they named the State Theatre. Make no mistake, from a technical point of view the thing is a theatre practitioner’s wet dream, but its facade is hardly one to inspire any predilections towards creative ebullience. But, filled with national artistic fervour, the theatre’s board of directors commissioned for their very first high drama a play by the truly great writer PG du Plessis, who duly obliged, but delivered a play that was merciless in its scathing observation of what life was about in the lower classes.

Siener in die Suburbs was, before rehearsals even began, a massive hit. With the censors.

“How,” they asked, “can you have a character who has only one line?”

“How,” they spluttered, “can this character’s only line be, ‘Ma, I’m preggers’?” Life is not like that! When it was explained that the whole narrative revolved around this line, the character and her line were allowed to remain in the play, and it is on the actress who would interpret this role that we now focus.

Rehearsals were intense. For months, our one-line actress approached the artist’s entrance and showed the man with the badge whose job it was to check such things, her State Theatre Performer Security Card. He would open the door with a smile and wave her through, chuckling at her distinct nerves, caused by the trauma of being about to rehearse this one vitally important opening line. They even got onto first name terms and would enquire on a regular basis about each other’s wellbeing and that of their respective families. And the rehearsals were going well. All was good.

After months of preparations, it was the grand gala opening, and the powerful would be in attendance. A convoy of huge cars disgorged their stuffed cargo, a glittering array that swept through the sumptuous lobby and haughtily took their seats in the brand-spanking new world-class theatre. Amidst the murmur of conversation, exhibitionist coughing and the ruffling of programmes, they were quite unaware of the panic behind the red velvet curtain. The actress with the one line was nowhere to be found. With cell phones not yet invented, she also remained quite untraceable. And the curtain had to go up in 10 minutes. It had to!

Now to the crux of this true story: the badge. With all the security blocking the roads leading to the theatre, a massive traffic jam had built up. When our heroine finally reached the front of the jam, it took her half an hour to explain to the man with the badge – a new guy this time – that she absolutely had to get to the theatre. She was eventually let through, with the proviso that she be accompanied by another new badge, and she desperately sprinted up the stairs to the artist’s entrance. Three minutes to curtain up! She ran straight into and bounced off a shut door, which was accompanied by a stern rebuke: “Sorry. Performers only. Card please?” Oh, God. She had left her card in her car. Two minutes! “But it’s me, for God’s sake! It’s me!” she gasped. “Sorry, lady, but rules is rules!” One minute!

When the stage manager was called to identify and sign in the same actress, the same badge he had greeted every morning for months, it was already five minutes after the curtain was supposed to go up. And the parting shot from the new badge was: “You know, if it wasn’t for you blêrrie actors, this place would run like clockwork!”