Theatre: Moffie
3 October 2026 at 15:00; October 4 at 19:00; October 5 at 10:00; October 6 at 18:00, October 10 at 20:00; October 11 at 10:00
Adam Small Auditorium
A soldier walks onto an empty stage carrying a bundle. Soon this bundle becomes a duffel bag packed for war; later it is his dead brother’s body.
In Moffie, staged at this year’s Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees, David Viviers, who plays the role of Nicholas van de Swart, a gay soldier in apartheid-era South Africa, relates his character’s life’s story as the single performer with the sound design standing in for a whole cast.
Given this architecture, the production relies cleverly on props and sound to set the scene.
When Nicholas reflects on sitting with his family at the dinner table, we hear cutlery, chairs and then his parents’ voices over the speakers. The war scenes sported flickering lights, gunshots and screaming, followed by sudden silence. Scene changes are abrupt, so a happy moment could be cut off by loud sound and light.
The language is vulgar but it suits the harshness of the play. There is also humour, which helps when Nicholas talks about not understanding himself.
The play’s writing (a reimagining of a novel by the same name) is strongest when it links prejudice to upbringing. Nicholas grew up beside Sophie, the family’s domestic worker, and her child, unaware of difference, which echoes his late realisation that he was different – his father has called him “soft” since the training wheels came off his bike.
His Christianity leaves him afraid of hell, and the army threatens “corrective” treatment in Ward 22, a psychiatric ward where homosexual soldiers are taken for treatment. When Nicholas finally admits who he is, the light narrows to him alone: Nowhere left to hide, no words needed. The play ends with a sunset, a kiss with Ethan, a soldier Nicholas met and fell in love with, and Nicholas holding the people he has lost in his heart.
I was in tears.
While well performed, there are two points of critique. The Afrikaans, used when Nicholas imitates his father and the sergeant, was sometimes translated by the character and sometimes not, which shut out audience members who don’t understand it. And because the story jumps between soldier and boy at home, the order of events was difficult to follow.
With one actor, one prop – the duffel bags – and select sound effects, it told a whole life story and successfully brought the audience along.