Master storyteller Uys returns to Joburg for a limited season with his tender memoir – The Echo of a Noise
By CityLife Arts Writer
Witty, engaging and deeply personal, Pieter-Dirk Uys’s “one-man memoir” The Echo of a Noisereturns to Pieter Toerien’s Montecasino Theatre from 21 April to 14 May 2023, tracing the journey of how one of South Africa’s national theatre treasures learned to use humour as a “weapon of mass distraction”.
Uys has been entertaining and scandalising audiences since the 1970s, and his characters such as Evita Bezuidenhout and Bambi Kellermann – not to mention his spoofs of apartheid’s rogues’ gallery and his HIV/Aids awareness work – have earned him a place in South African theatre history as one of the nation’s foremost satirists and theatre activists.
Now, in The Echo of a Noise, it’s Uys unpowdered, uncostumed and virtually unplugged – stripped down to a barstool, a beanie and a casual black ensemble but armed with a lifetime of entertaining and often poignant anecdotes about the influences that shaped him and his art.
The show has been staged to much acclaim, laughter and tears since 2016, and now it returns to Johannesburg to enchant audiences anew. No performance is the same, as this master storyteller feeds off each audience’s energy as he strolls through his pageant of memories with its colourful cast of characters.
Meet his father Hannes Uys, his mother Helga Bassel, his grandmothers, his teachers, his passions: Sophia Loren, censorship, false eyelashes and making a noise – a loud, audacious, bitingly funny noise – when everyone demanded silence.
Encounter Pieter-Dirk Uys stripped down and as never before: a man and a satirist shaped by his upbringing, environment and choices – and by the pivotal and sometimes tragic life events that forged him in fire.
There is much humour in these recollections, too, as Uys holds the audience spellbound with this powerful monologue – confirming once again why he remains one of South Africa’s most engaging raconteurs.
Book your seat now for a personal audience with Pieter-Dirk Uys – don’t miss The Echo of a Noise. Performances are on Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 4pm and 8pm, and Sundays at 3pm. Book at Webtickets or contact Geraldine at (011) 511-1988 or geraldine@montetheatre.co.za for discounted school bookings.