Pierre De Wet Toneelgeselskap

The Pierre De Wet Toneelgeselskap ("Pierre de Wet Theatrical Compamy")was an Afrikaans company, which toured the country in the 1940s with translated and original plays. Founded by the dramatist, actor and director-manager Pierre de Wet on 1 August, 1942, when he broke away from a joint company he had formed with André Huguenet (and which had been performing Absolom, My Seun), to begin his own touring company with performers such as Paula Styger, James Norval and Anna Cloete. They toured 1942-43 with the plays Satansloon (an Afrikaans version he had made of Gaslight) and Pinkie (a play he wrote, based on an expansion of the "Pinkie" role he had done in Absolom, My Seun).

In 1944 Norval and Cloete left, so he obtained Anna Neethling-Pohl, Jan Cronjé and Gert van den Bergh of Volksteater as actors to expand his company. (Suzanne van Wyk later replaced an ill Paula Styger.) Their repertoire consisted of Pinkie once again (under the auspices of Volksteater), Korrels en Kaf ("Kernels and Chaff", a evening of one-act plays) and Die Goeie Oue Tyd ("The good old times", especially written for them by Sita). The company toured the whole country in the year, playing cities and small towns from Pretoria to Cape Town. In 1944 De Wet directed his last stage work, Ontvlugting by W.A. de Klerk, before turning to film.

Sources

Jan Cronje, 1985 [TH]

For more information

See also Pierre de Wet

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