When truth is stranger than fiction

Greenside resident and former Minister for Intelligence Services Ronnie Kasrils believes some stories have to be told.

This is why he put pen to paper to tell the moving, riveting story of his late wife Eleanor, in his book The Unlikely Secret Agent. Now his thrilling narrative has been adapted for stage and is being showcased at the Drama Factory in Cape Town, from Tuesday, August 17. Ronnie hoped it will soon showcase on Johannesburg stages as well.

Ronnie said the narrative he had penned was a true political thriller and love story set in South Africa at the time of Sharpeville, 1960. He explained his motivation to write the book: Eleanor died suddenly in 2009, and he said he subsequently wrote her story ‘at a furious pace as therapy’, and also as a commitment to change, what he has called ‘an iniquitous system’.

He described the storyline in a nutshell, “Boy meets girl, fall in love; as they grapple with the racism and persecution of black people, which they abhor. She is a single parent with overbearing parents and has to protect her young daughter from them and when she becomes entangled in politics, from the attention of the police…” And that’s just the beginning.

Ronnie said telling the story had not been difficult, “It came easily to me, for we had discussed that story many times. I had encouraged her to write it, but she never did. The emotions overpowered her. It was left to me to do that work.”

When the production debuted last year, he said he knew of a former security police official who was in the audience. “He wrote to me praising the play, and saying he would tell his colleagues to see it.”

Sadly, after a week of being on stage, the show was put on hold because of Covid-19. But now it is back on stage in Cape Town.

Ronnie explained he had liaised with the production team for convincing portrayals of events and the people involved in the account. “Producer and actor, Erika Marais, who plays Eleanor, had a number of long discussions with me at my home, at social distance, given the pandemic. She wanted to get into Eleanor’s skin. She read many books of the period to deepen her understanding of the times and what made people like Eleanor and me tick. Likewise, writer and actor, Paul du Toit, who plays me as well as a security policeman, psychiatrist and mental asylum inmate, had an ongoing interaction with me via email, during the writing process.”

He concluded, “People have been moved and amazed by the extent of Eleanor’s courage and sacrifice.”

Details: The Drama Factory www.thedramafactory.co.za