The Venue
Pieter- Dirk Uys was on his way to the town of McGregor one fine day in 1995 and took a wrong turning. He arrived in Darling, ordered a schnitzel at Zum Schatzi and outside the restaurant met Dale Gremels, who was selling a house. She'd seen his show in the Baxter the week before.
“What are you doing in Darling?” she asked.
“Come to eat a schnitzel”, he said.
“The cow is still in the meadow. In the meantime, let me show you the town.”
And so she took him around the village, pointing out the charming Victorian houses nestled in the cosy elbow of the hills. “There's just one old house we're trying to sell. Difficult. Empty for years.”
She turned a corner and there amid wild elephant grass, shutters askew, stood the most beautiful wreck of an old house Uys had ever seen. He bought it in the car, even after being told that there were snakes under the floorboards! But instinct has never let him down.
Pieter-Dirk Uys left Darling some hours later, having had a wonderful schnitzel and now the owner of a crocked old house.
It took six months to renovate and as magic would have it, Darling had all the people to do the job: a young man who specialized in Victorian restoration, a Danish electrician, a wizard-carpenter and a community of artisans who painted, scraped, oiled and gently put the old house together like plastic surgeons.
Once Pieter Dirk Uys had moved from Cape Town, Jochi Gremels casually mentioned that the old station building in Arcadia Road was now empty. It had been derelict for some years, and then became the workshop of that wizard-carpenter who'd decided to move on. And so, in 1996, it stepped into the pages of the unique and became EVITA SE PERRON.
Inspired by the legends of Argentina's Evita Peron and our own Evita Bezuidenhout, this was the ideal place for a theatre. Besides, the word perron is Afrikaans for station platform! For the first year all activity was centred round the small blik building in its strange colours next to the railway line. We inherited the colour schemes. When the station was derelict and rusted, concerned townsfolk looked in their garages and brought whatever paint they could find. So we proudly display pink, lime-green, blue and white as our international colours.
To look at the buildings today with the two theatres, restaurant and bar, arts and crafts activities, Darling Trust Craft Centre and Boerassic Park, one finds it hard to remember that this was just a rural railway station once that served the best meat pies in the Swartland. And that, in spite of Evita's use of the word skattie, the town has always been called Darling. The station was closed in the 1970s. Various people used the building for a variety of things, but the gravel expanse next to the railway line stayed dusty and hard on the eyes and feet. When Pieter-Dirk Uys, already settled in his old house up the road, was asked if he could use the building as a storeroom to hold off the demolishers, the dormant idea of his own theater rekindled in his imagination.
The venue was hired — could it have been R80 a month? — restructured with a small stage and enough space for 12 tables with chairs. The kitchen would squeeze into the small area at the back where the carpenter kept his tools.
“I've opened a theater in Darling, darling,” Pieter Dirk Uys said to his friends in Cape Town. “Darling, you're mad”, they replied.
Yes. Mad is good. It means no one has thought of it yet.
And so Evita Bezuidenhout launched her new legendary monologue on Afrikaner history: Tannie Evita Praat Kaktus.
People from the town came forward to man the outpost of entertainment. Tony Bradshaw ran the booking; Naomi Matlokotsi oversaw the venue; Andrew Brown performed miracles in the closet-now-kitchen, producing the best curry in the Swartland. Daily goods trains rumble by and everything shivers on the walls, and shakes on the tables. Some of the Perron cats even purr. Guests think it's just a sound effect, but when they see the approaching diesel monster, which looks as if it will plough into the building, they are thrilled and shocked, the cheek of it all. As it clatters by, often the drivers wave a greeting to Evita, the most famous white woman in South Africa.
After that year of experimentation (1996), the remainder of the gravel land was purchased and the building was extended to include a restaurant-cabaret venue. By its tenth year, EVITA SE PERRON could entertain an audience of up to 130 people.
The focus is on weekends, when varied shows are presented at lunchtimes and in the evening. The main attractions are the various Pieter-Dirk Uys shows and his famous chorus-line of political characters, some that have been with him since 1980. Of course, Mrs Evita Bezuidenhout is the superstar on the stage.
The years have passed with extraordinary success and original surprises. The addition of the ARTS AND CRAFTS (Tannie Evita's A en C) launched The Darling Trust, the Elsie Balt Art School and Gallery. Architect Jakes de Villiers has kept the style of the original station in all the additions, so people often think that they have all been there since the 19th century.
TANNIE SE TUIN has become an integral part of daily life in Darling. Besides the seasonal flowers and the trees that are flourishing under the gift of an old windmill there is a playground for kiddies centred round the old Land Rover donated by JC van der Westhuizen. Under the trees, no longer forgotten and dusty but lavish with leaves, the community rest on their way back to their homes from the banks, the shops and the bottle store. A faux Renaissance statue of a nude lady (Is dit onse Ma Evita?) has become a good luck touchstone for the many who pass her by. Vryf aan haar tietie en maak `n wens!
On the other side of the compound, an eccentric art garden has developed. Called BOERASSIC PARK, it reflects humour through the display of political icons and symbols — from apartheid signs to a gravy train, led by a smiling Nelson Mandela as the happy engine. The garden also reflects local crafts and artefacts specially made for inclusion in this wonderland of Mama kyk daar!
The Perron garden was designed and nurtured by Dr Richard King and is a monument to local plants, shrubs, vet plante and bird life. Petal against plastic, these flowers thrive and grow, some by being watered, others dusted. The only real animals that stalk the terrain are six PERRON CATS. They are a major feature with the public and the Peronistas. As all true theatres need a resident moggie, within days of relaunching the new additions to the old station, the first four furries arrived: Marilyn, Moggie, Windgat and Die Koei. Additions took place amid regular gasps of surprise. Ginger Rogers waddled in from nowhere, invited to be the rough trade and punch bag for the tough boy-cats. He turned out to be a bit of a kittophile and has brought two small kittens into the Perron. Boesman and Two-Kay joined the cabaret. The most recent addition, Elsie, appeared out of the dirtbin aged 6 weeks. Daleen Kruger nurtured her in the cleft of her Rubensque bosom and to this day, Elsie takes a flying leap onto any passing chest. She confronted a passing train some years back and lost her front leg, but is now obliviously chasing visiting dogs on three legs as if it were the new fashion.
The local SPCA Depot is on the R315 back towards the R27 and after a visit to our cats, waiting pets have been adopted on the way home.