Rip van Winkle

Rip van Winkle is the name of a character in a number of stories, plays, films, and so on, as well as the title of various stage and film versions of the of the original tale about the character.

Also found written as Rip Van Winkle.

A number of these works have been performed or shown in South Africa.

The original tale

"Rip Van Winkle" is the title of a short story by the American author Washington Irving. It tells the story of Dutch-American villager in colonial America who falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains and wakes up 20 years later, having missed the American Revolution.

While there are a number of similar sotries in the canon of Europaean folklore, myth and literature, Irving's tale is widely thought to have been based on Johann Karl Christoph Nachtigal's German folktale "Peter Klaus", set in a German village, in which a goatherd goes looking for a lost goat and finds some men drinking in the woods. Having had something to drink with them, he falls asleep and wakes back up after twenty years.

Irving's version was first published as one of the stories in the first volume of Irving's book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent on June 23, 1819, published by Cornelius S. Van Winkle (Baltimore, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia).

The story of Rip has been translated and adapted in numerous ways since.

International stage and film versions of the tale

American actor Joseph Jefferson, who had performed various dramatizations of the character on the 19th-century stage, joined forces with Dion Boucicault to write a stage adaptation called Rip van Winkle, which opened in London in 1865 and on Broadway in 1866.

For many other adaptations, see the Wikipedia entry on "Rip Van Winkle"[1]

South African versions of the tale

Rip van Winkle an Afrikaans operetta by Jac J. Brits () and Walter Swanson (music)

An operetta for school use.

Rip van Wyk a localized film version by Emil Nofal and Jamie Uys

Produced and directed by Emil Nofal with a screenplay by Nofal and Jamie Uys. The cast consisted of Jamie Uys, Wynona Cheyney, Rina Viljoen, Gert van den Bergh, Willem Loots, Johan Malherbe, Kristo Pienaar, Petro McDonald, Willie van Rensburg, Willie Herbst, Douglas Fuchs, Johan du Plooy, Nilo Naudé-van Zyl, Marie Fuchs, Ernst Schutte, Lydia Lindeque, Pieter de Bruyn, Arthur Hall, Pieter Hauptfleisch, Dana Niehaus, Ben Willemse, Christo Gerber (as Chris Gerber), Ralph Loubser (as Ralph Laubscher), Francis Coertze (as Frances Coertze), Roelof de Bruyn, Awie Labuschagne, Sam Petzer, Siegfried Mynhardt, Gilbert Gibson, Kosie Jooste, Harry Hughes, Ian Strauss, André Huguenet (as himself - uncredited)

Music is by Richard Cherry, cinematography by Vernon Whitten, film editing by Peter Henkel, makeup by Hilda Geerdts, production management by Willie Herbst, set construction by Bob Evans, sound by Anthony Keyser, visual Effects by James Reindorp, camera operator Vincent G. Cox, wardrobe by Hilda Geerdts, continuity by Yvonne Jennings. Music for the film provided by Anton de Waal and Nick Potgieter.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_Van_Winkle

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2016983/

Return to R

Return to South African Theatre Plays

Return to Main Page