Novel comes to life on the stage
Gripping SA novel takes to the stage at Carnival City.
South African actor and author, Simon Bruinders’ gripping novel, Die Sideboard, comes to life at Carnival City’s Mardi Gras Theatre from November 5 to 8.
Directed by Albert Maritz, this enthralling musical is based on the true story told in Bruinders’ book.
The story, conveyed with humour and empathy, combined with song and dance on stage, is an authentically South African tale that will touch the hearts and live in the memory of the audience.
Die Sideboard is about an illiterate Abraham De Bruin who dreams of a small farm where he can grow crops and raise children.
His journey starts in George, just before the Second World War.
During the war, Abraham starts a lifelong friendship with Kobus Venter, played by Andrè Terblanche, an Afrikaner who has his own problems at home and has been ostracised by his own family for daring to fight with the English who brought much hardship on the Afrikaners during the Anglo Boer War.
After the war, Abraham continues his life’s journey with his sideboard, which he made for his beloved Stella, for whom he learned to sign his name as he wanted to marry her.
Through the ensuing years the sideboard, like Abraham and his family, is constantly under threat; first by the fire when their home burns down and later by forces wanting to destroy him.
Die Sideboard is one of only a handful of novels emerging from a coloured writer.
The story of South Africa’s “brown people” is told in an open, sometimes shocking, but always balanced way.
The book has been extremely well received and is currently being read on Radio Sonder Grense (RSG).
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