Anglo-Boer heroine brought to life on stage

HOUGHTON – The story of Anglo-Boer war humanitarian heroine Emily Hobhouse is brought to life on stage at Foxwood Theatre in Tony Jackman’s award-winning An Audience with Miss Hobhouse.

The one-act, one-woman show directed by Christopher Weare stars Lynita Crofford, who was nominated for a Fleur du Cap award for her performances as Hobhouse and a Boer woman, Tant Alie Badenhorst.

Jackman’s play transports the audience to London’s West End, where the aristocratic Hobhouse will deliver a speech to a gathering that includes King George V.

As Hobhouse’s speech begins, so do “flashbacks”, aided by a few props and sound effects, to her time in South Africa, where she worked to change the way in which the British army treated the Boer women and children in concentration camps.

In her speech, Hobhouse tries to explain the what and why of her actions – and why she regretted nothing.

Jackman said, “By the time she died in London in 1926 at the age of 66, Hobhouse had become a frail and dejected woman, resentful that many of her own people did not appreciate her efforts or understand why she did what she did, and offended that she was thought of as a traitor by some.”

He said Hobhouse’s fellow countrymen thought she was more concerned about the welfare of the “enemy” than of her own people.

“Her concern was for women and children who were sick and dying. Hers was a humanitarian mission, not a political one. Her concern was women who were victims of war and oppression, not women who were ‘the enemy’,” he said.

Crofford’s secondary character, Badenhorst, was based on a real Boer woman whose memoir was translated by Hobhouse and published in London after the war had ended.

The play, which received a Standard Bank Ovation Award for excellence on the fringe at this year’s National Arts Festival, coincided with the centenary of Bloemfontein’s Women’s Monument.

Speaking about the monument, Hobhouse said, “We claim it as a world monument, of which all the world’s women should be proud; for your dead by their brave simplicity have spoken to universal womanhood; and henceforth they are woven into the stuff of every woman’s life.”

An Audience with Miss Hobhouse is at Foxwood Theatre, 13 5th Street, Houghton Estate, until 23 September, and will run at Potchefstroom’s Aardklop Nasionale Kunstefees from 24 until 28 September.

Details: 011-486-0935; admin@foxwood.co.za