Powerful, touching and prophetic, Charles J. Fourie’s highly acclaimed play The Parrot Woman is now showing at the Burton Taylor Theatre in Oxford.
Set in South Africa during the Boer war at the turn of the 20th century, an Afrikaner woman is discovered on a farm with the bodies of her murdered husband and children. Awaiting trial, she is held at a concentration camp keeping company with a fictitious parrot and guarded by a disillusioned soldier wrestling with his conscience. As the couple bond over their experiences of war and prepare to escape, a fragile friendship is born and the two try to make sense of their situations.
The cast consists of just two actors, including the playwright himself. In the small theatre, this created a wonderfully intense atmosphere and absorbed the audience within minutes of the play commencing. Christine Trüter acts brilliantly as the Afrikaner woman switching between English and Afrikaans as she chatters away to her ‘parrot’ and the bemused soldier guarding her. The use of both languages serves well to highlight the differences between the two characters and in the end, unites them. Fourie gives an equally mesmerising performance as the guarding soldier and drives the plot forward as he becomes increasingly unsettled by his prisoner.
First staged at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg, in 1990, The Parrot Woman has been performed throughout South Africa including seasons at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival where it won a Pick of the Fringe Award, The Hilton Arts Festival, Durban, and Theatre on the Bay, Cape Town. It is not hard to see why this play has been successful; it comes as highly recommended viewing.
Set in South Africa during the Boer war at the turn of the 20th century, an Afrikaner woman is discovered on a farm with the bodies of her murdered husband and children. Awaiting trial, she is held at a concentration camp keeping company with a fictitious parrot and guarded by a disillusioned soldier wrestling with his conscience. As the couple bond over their experiences of war and prepare to escape, a fragile friendship is born and the two try to make sense of their situations.
The cast consists of just two actors, including the playwright himself. In the small theatre, this created a wonderfully intense atmosphere and absorbed the audience within minutes of the play commencing. Christine Trüter acts brilliantly as the Afrikaner woman switching between English and Afrikaans as she chatters away to her ‘parrot’ and the bemused soldier guarding her. The use of both languages serves well to highlight the differences between the two characters and in the end, unites them. Fourie gives an equally mesmerising performance as the guarding soldier and drives the plot forward as he becomes increasingly unsettled by his prisoner.
First staged at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg, in 1990, The Parrot Woman has been performed throughout South Africa including seasons at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival where it won a Pick of the Fringe Award, The Hilton Arts Festival, Durban, and Theatre on the Bay, Cape Town. It is not hard to see why this play has been successful; it comes as highly recommended viewing.