WINDHOEK– My hands were still dripping with sweat when I took my chair opposite Pieter Dirk –Uys, who informed me rather briskly that Aunty Evita was having tea with the Founding Father Sam Nujoma.
I was not even in conception yet, when Uys’ alter ego Evita took shape, but that little detail did not stop me from devouring every Huisgenoot article featuring the old snob strutting on the arm of Mandela with awfully big hair and long skirts. A woman with balls they’d call her as I was growing up, I on the other hand was scarred for life when I found out Aunty Evita was never the real deal and that, that sharp chin used to grow beard. I eventually got over the fact that there was no real Aunty Evita, and before long, the snazzy pages of magazines introduced the family affair that was the Evitas.
After more than 20 years the world came to know Evita’s rowdy sister Bambie, a former pole dancer who now runs a brothel fondly referred to as the ‘wine tasting cellar’ somewhere in Paarl. Uys recently staged the Fifty Shades of Bambi presentation of Bambi’s life and is eager to bring it to Namibia next year. According to Uys, Bambi, a former pole dancer, fights for the rights of women and is lobbying for a union for prostitutes. He also explains that she (Bambi) gives lectures on Safe Sex, HIV and AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and rape, to educate the girls that works in her Cellar. “If for once we stop frightening talks of sex and talk openly about it we can solve things,” he notes.
Uys is baffled that people would want to call him a cross dresser. “If I am playing a tree would you call me a tree?” he frowns adding that all he does is acting. “It is a journey, it took 30 years to perfect Evita,” Uys says as he leans forward on the table to explain how crazy the world has become. “When we started satire we commented on issues to that community could see how absurd they were, but now society is so crazy that you see a pregnant women with a bomb in a pram. The situation now is so real.”
“You (Namibia) are a few steps ahead of us when it comes to the focus of what a nation is. In South Africa, people are much tied down and still blame the Apartheid for their miseries,” he sighs as he continues to talk about the fragility of the South African freedom of expression.
Is race not overrated in comedy or satire? “No!” he exclaims, “if government still use racism why not the comedians?”
By Jemima Beukes