Charles Etienne Boniface

(Dates uncertain: 1787-1853/1788-1854): Dramatist, theatre director, dancing instructor, linguist, language teacher, fencing teacher, composer and guitarist, music teacher. An enormously talented, intelligent and abrasive French immigrant (born in Paris ), who arrived in Cape Town on 10 February 1806, after his father’s family had fled France in 1793 after helping Sir Sydney Smith escape the clutches of the Revolution. Founder of the French Theatre Company and leading figure in the French/Dutch company Honi Soit qui Mal y Pense, he played an enormous role in the development of theatre, and Dutch and Afrikaans theatre in particular, in his Cape Town period (from 1807 to 1840), before moving to Natal. Besides being a fiery journalist who was the first writer to use Afrikaans when he edited De Zuid-Afrikaan, he translated and wrote a number of plays in Dutch, Afrikaans and even English, which he also produced. Also noted for his uncomprimising and vicious feud with a number of Capetonians, most notably his former friend J. Suasso de Lima. In 1844 he fled to Pietermaritzburg, to help start the first newspaper in Natal (the Natalier) and practise as an advocate at law, although it is not known of he was involved in theatre whilst resident there. Never really financially successful, he committed suicide in 1853. He produced a number of “firsts”, including the first ballet in South Africa (Sappho), which was staged in the Cape, the first South African play in English: Kockincoz, or The Pettifogging Lawyers Plot (1843) and De Nieuwe Ridderordeof De Temperantisten (1832), said to be the first play in Afrikaans-Dutch and possibly his best work. Other works include poetry and the plays The Blamed Reputation, Het Beleg van Troyen, l’Enragé, Clasius stupidibus bavianus of Het proces om een komedielootjie (1834), the stories Bluettes franco-nataliennes and Le Latanier. [TH, JH]