Nag, Generaal

Nag, Generaal ("Goodnight, General") is a play by Reza de Wet (1952-2012).

The original text

A pacifist play set in the final years of the Anglo-Boer War and relating the story of Martha, a woman finding her own inner strength with the aid of a mystical young herbalist, while seeking to avenge herself on her dying husband, the patriarchal General, whom she holds responsible for the death by suffocation of her son, whom he had sent to the battle front.

Published in De Wet's collection called Vrystaat Trilogie ("Free State Trilogy") in 1991 (HAUM-Literêr), along with Diepe Grond and Op Dees Aarde.

Translations and adaptations

In 2004 De Wet re-wrote the play as Breathing In, a more Gothic tale and refocusing the issues of the play on the notion that the "final breath" of a dying person could be life-giving. Using very much the same situation, she retains the General, but combines the Martha character with that of the mysterious healer, to create a kind of Mother Courage character, who, while acting as healer, simultaneously scavenges on the battlefield, to the extent of using her beautiful young daughter to seduce young soldiers and robbing them of their "dying breath" to keep her daughter alive.

Breathing In was in its turn translated back into Afrikaans as Asem ("breath") by Marthinus Basson and had its premiére at the KKNK in 2017.