Skrapnel

Skrapnel ("Shrapnel") is an Afrikaans play by Willem Anker (1979–).

The original text

A play about two young South Africans in London: a girls working as a carer for old people and a man working as a security guard at a shopping centre. They meet in a youth hostel and become involved. On 7 Jul7 2005 the man dies in a suicide bombing in the London Underground. The play begins shortly after the attack, and their story is told in flashbacks, that include insights into the religiuous fundamentalism of the yough Moslem suicide bomber, and the unfocussed and uncertain lives of the two young South Africans regarding identity, beliefand culture.

In 2022 a prompt copy for a text called Skrapnel was accidentally discovered in the archives of the Stellenbosch Drama Department, apparently one used by the stage manager (Naomi Slabber) in what appears to have been an earlier (preliminary? workshopped?) Stellenbosch student production/exercise. This text differs considerably from the later published version, containing 9 characters (instead of the three in the final text) for example, with metaphoric names like "Kenner", "Nuwe", "Diener", "Orde", "Chaos", etc. There is also a sound disc dated 1995. Was this early piece done in 1995?

If this was genuinely an early version, the text was clearly rewritten by Anker, and the final version performed in Potchefstroom in 2009 and published by Protea Boekhuis in 2011.

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

2009: First presented at the Aardklop festival in Potchefstroom, directed and designed by Jaco Bouwer, with lighting design by Michael Maxwell and sound design by Braam du Toit. The cast consisted of Marcel van Heerden, Andrew Thompson and Jenine Groenewald.

2010: The same production was presented at the Woordfees in Stellenbosch on 4 and 6 March and at the National Arts Festival in July.

2019: Performed by VNA Productions for the South African State Theatre's school set works program.