de Wet: Plays Two

Includes the plays African Gothic, Good Heavens and Breathing In



A farm lies in ruin. And with mother and father now gone, a brother and sister face eviction by an officious lawyer. Abandoned, they endlessly enact the rituals of punishment once visited upon them by their parents. Widely regarded as a milestone in South African theatre, the multi-award winning play African Gothic tells the story of their final 'dance macabre'. Despite overwhelming critical acclaim, it was also fiercely condemned by Afrikaans conservatives as being a subversive portrayal of repression. Good Heavens is a comedy thriller with the dark poetic heart of a folk-tale. Two spinster sisters, with their ailing mother and simple-minded brother, await the annual visit of their youngest sister. Deeply envious of her beauty and youth, they hatch a diabolical plot to rid themselves of her forever. In Breathing In, on a stormy night in the last bitter months of the Second Anglo-Boer War, a seriously wounded General and his faithful Adjutant encounter a mysterious woman and her seductive other-wordly daughter, and are confronted with the subtle methods of survival these women have been forced to adopt. Accustomed to the rigours of war, the corageous Adjutant now faces a terrible choice.