Hélène Pienaar-De Klerk

Hélène Pienaar-De Klerk (19??-1979) was an Afrikaans actress, playwright and director.

Also known as Hélène de Klerk or Hélène P. de Klerk.

Biography

Born Hélène Pienaar in Somerset West, as the daughter of rev. P.J. Pienaar en Henriette Pienaar, she trained as a primary school teacher at the University of Cape Town and taught for about three years. She then returned to university to to study speech and drama and then joined the SABC, where she tended to be the presenter of Afrikaans children's radio programmes and became known as the "Tannie van die Kinderhoekie" ("aunt of the children's corner"). She had to compile and present virtually every programme herself. Suitable material being rather scarce, she thus became an author, writing material for the programmes as well as other works.

She then met and married Andries de Klerk, also a dramatist and later Provincial Secretary for the Cape Province, and retired from the SABC, to write and raise their three daughters.

She passed away on 4 December 1979 in Cape Town.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

As an actress and theatre director she started in Pretoria, probably with Volksteater, then moved to Cape Town where she worked with K.A.T., for example directing and playing the lead in Sudermann's Liefdesvuur in 1945. She also appeared in a number of radio plays and the occasional film, e.g. playing "Tant Esme" in Die Reën Kom Weer (1963)[1].

Her writing is largely verses, songs and plays for children, though she also wrote a few works for adults.

She wrote some works with her husband, Andries de Klerk, among them the one act play Die Ring (1944), the collection of one-act plays Die Ring en Ander Eenbedrywe and Die Ongebore Dag (1953).

Her own plays include: Ko-ee (1940), As die Klok Twaalfuur Slaan (1940), Plaas toe (1944), In ‘n Ou Kaapse Tuin (1952), Marionet aan die Muur (1963), Dienie Speel Toneel, .

She was one of the first writers to write plays for radio and her play Liefdesdroom ("dream of love", broadcast in 1937 with Wena Naudé in the leading role) is the oldest recording of an Afrikaans radiodrama held by SABC in their sound archives. She was also the co-author (with Kobus Louw) of the script for Stephan Bouwer's TV drama Die Koster, an Afrikaans version of The Beadle by Pauline Smith (broadcast in 1968) She is billed as Helene de Klerk in this case.

As a translator and adaptor, she translated Joyce Wood's children's book Grandmother Lucy and Her Hats (1969) into Afrikaans as Ouma Loekie en haar hoede (1969) and adapted English and German songs into Afrikaans for the annual Eisteddfod. Shortly before her death, wrote some of the lyrics for the musical Beertjie met die gelapte broek (1976) and the songs for the DALRO collection Die jongspan sing ("the young people sing", 1978), in both cases to music by Walter Swanson.