Kanna, hy kô Hystoe

(“Kanna’s Coming Home”) by Adam Small. A heavy-hearted, but superb Afrikaans verse play about the issues of voluntary exile and the trials and tribulations of a “coloured” family in District Six in Cape Town. Possibly a reworking of an earlier play, Gone/Going Canada*?. An extract of the Afrikaans text, without a title and with "Kanna" named still "Hannie", was published in Contrast (March 1965). The full text under the new name first published by Tafelberg Uitgewers in 1965. Initially called an unperformable text by critics such as W.E.G. Louw and Abel Coetzee, it proved to be a moving theatrical work in production. First performed by the students of DRAMSOC 1971??**, under Small's own direction, then professionally in the Little Theatre?* housed in the Old Presidency by PACOFS (Bloemfontein) from 3-12 August 1971, directed by Johan Botha and featuring Louise Millett-Prinsloo as "Makiet", Jan Prinsloo as Kanna, Trudie Taljaard as "Kietie". The first Cape performance followed by the newly founded Cape Flats Players in 1974, by PACT in 1976, by the Eersterus Performing Arts Council (in association with PACT) in 1981. Kanna hy kô hystoe (Cape Flats-Spelers, Aardklop, 1999), by the Baxter Theatre, directed by Royston Stoffels (2003-4), design by Patrick Curtis and featuring Ivan Abrahams, Peter Butler, **. Reprinted often and produced numerous times since, by Universities, professionals and amateurs. Translated into English as Kanna – He is Coming Home by Carol Lasker and Adam Small, performed in the USA and published by Garland in 1990. Published by Tafelberg.

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