Dear Mrs Steyn

One-woman play inspired by and based upon the letters and journals of Emily Hobhouse to Mrs Rachel Steyn, script by Deon Opperman, Garth Holmes and Wilna Snyman (1999).

Subject

During the Second Boer War (1899-1902) Emily Hobhouse wrote a series of letters to her close friend and soul mate Mrs Rachel Isabella Steyn, wife of the State President of the Orange Free State, M.T. Steyn. Her focus was on the suffering of the Afrikaner women and children incarcerated in the British concentration camps during the war.

Performance history in South Africa

Premièred in Die Teaterhuisie in May 1999 (centenary year of the start of the South African War (or also called the Second Boer War, 1899-1902), Directed by Deon Opperman with Wilna Snyman. The same production played in The Baxter Theatre Concert Hall in May 1999, the Windybrow in October 1999 and at the KKNK of 1999. This production had a long run over many years, with Wilna Snyman still performing it at Die Boer in Cape Town on 16th February 2011. It was also performed at a number of embassies around the world.

In 2014 ItsTaboo Productions produced a new production of the play at Seabrooke's Theatre, DHS, St Thomas Road, Musgrave, Durban. Directed by Thomie Holtzhausen, with Alison Cassels as Emily Hobhouse.

Sources

KKNK Festival programme, 1999.

[Van Heerden (2008)][1]. p. 130.

http://www.durbanhighschool.co.za/content/news/News_Item.asp?content_ID=1160

Go to ESAT Bibliography

Return to

Return to ESAT Templates

Return to D in Plays I Original SA Plays

Return to D in Plays IV: Festivals and Pageants

Return to South_African_Theatre/Plays

Return to The ESAT Entries

Return to Main Page