MUSEUM THEATRE
MORE ABOUT THE MUSEUM THEATRE
The Toekomsbou Museum Theatre
At the Toekomsbou Museum Theatre, a traditional museum integrates with interactive theatre. Learn more about the Afrikaner’s origins and history from the Anglo-Boer War to today by shrieking with laughter, singing, crying and thinking more deeply.
About the scenes
JP de Villiers studies graphic design and has been tasked with a project about his origins that counts for 50% of the semester. Who comes up with this stuff? JP has no idea where to start or where he came from! With his grandmother’s family photo album, he travels back in time to visit the ladies in his family. He started in 1902 with his great-great-grandmother …
During his search for his origins, JP rediscovers who he is and ends up at a crossroads that will determine his entire future. What is JP’s ultimate choice on the following question: Is there still life in this country?
MEET THE CHARACTERS
JACQUES PHILLIP DE VILLIERS
THE STUDENT
JP de Villiers is looking for his heritage … for what it means to be a De Villiers, but also what his family went through so that he can complete an impossible university task and hopefully get through the semester. But JP doesn’t know that he’ll get so much more out of this quest than just cute anecdotes for his task.
ANNA PETRONELLA NEL (NÉE DE JAGER)
THE ANGLO-BOER WAR SURVIVOR
Great-great-grandmother Petro is the only survivor of her family who was held prisoner at Bethulie concentration camp. She saw how their farmhouse and fields were burned down, but also how her mother and two sisters died with her in the concentration camp. Soon after, she receives the news that her brother has been shot dead in a skirmish with the British and her father has been taken as a prisoner of war. She hopes that her father is still alive beyond the blue ocean in Ceylon. For now, she takes shelter in a church and begins to work the fields again.
ANNA CATHERINA PETRONELLA MARÉ (NÉE NEL)
PUPIL AND CLOTHES PRESSER
Great-grandmother Catherina is a real donkey as a child because she is not intimidated by an English teacher. If she wants to speak Afrikaans, she will! Even if she must wear donkey ears as a crown. Later, she married a miner and had a string of children to look after in Fordsburg. As a poor white woman, she uses her iron to create a future for her children!
ANNA MARÉ
OSSEWABRANDWAG SPY
Great aunt Anna, her mother’s clever child, becomes a spy. During the war years, she controlled her men with an iron hand to counter Slim Jannie’s war plans. But what exactly she does behind closed doors at her secret meetings is not widely known. As Great Aunt Anna always says with her hand on her chest: “If I charge, follow me. If I fall, avenge me. If I turn around, shoot me. But just not now, because I’m on my way out.”
CHRISTINA MARÉ
SECRETARY AND VOCAL TEACHER
Great-aunt Christina, like her mother, is as hardheaded as a donkey. She finds herself in a temporary position in the public service. For Verwoerd, she only does the minimum in exchange for her public service salary. Yet, as a middle child, she still strives for recognition and so changes her profession to teaching. In the music class, she finally lives out her passion for Afrikaans songs. But don’t sing a false note, she’s still so short-tempered!
CHRISTINA DE VILLIERS
THE SALARY LADY
Aunt Christina, from the other side of the family, decided to follow in her brother’s footsteps. Days of Liewe Heksie, Keurboslaan and Oros– drinking are over! She enrolled at the South African Army Women’s College in George so that she could also do her duty for land and country in the turbulent times of the 1980s.
JACOBA PHILLIPA MEYER (NÉE MARÉ)
THE FARMER’S WIFE
Ouma Jacoba is named after her father, Jacob, the miner, but smells like clean laundry like her mother, Catherina. As a farmer’s wife, her family is her pride, and her favourite pastime is spoiling her grandson, JP. But there is also a darkness from her past that takes over every time she thinks of her Faan. Ever since she gave the family album to JP for his university assignment, she’s been thinking about that day more and more. The story must get out … she can’t keep it from JP anymore.
