The cruelty of God, stone and the Kowie Railway Company is finely explored and questioned in Peter Terry’s dramatisation of the April 22 1911 Blaauwkrantz Bridge disaster, titled Immortal.
The play showed to full houses at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival recently.
The work recounts how a train carrying a load of quarried stone from Bathurst to Grahamstown for the construction of the Anglican cathedral of St Michael and St George, derailed. This, Terry suggests in the play, means there is blood in some of the stone in this venerated and transformed church.
But it largely is a human tale, told through the voice of seven-year-old Hazel Smith, who lost four of six family members, including her parents, when the coupling of an “unregulated” truck, one of five carrying the church’s stone and pineapples, snapped. The impact caused the truck to jump the rails, and literally leap off the bridge.
It plummeted 60m to the bottom of the gorge, which is halfway between Bathurst and Grahamstown, dragging with it four full passenger coaches and a guard van.
Without spoiling the story line, Smith, trapped high up in the struts of the bridge, had an unspeakable experience. But there were angels too that day, with climbing skills.
There was a poignant historical connection to the work when scores of Diocesan School for Girls (DSG) junior schoolgirls attended the premiere in honour of DSG pupil Hope Brereton, one of the 29 people who died.
Jenna Dunster gave a captivating performance as Hazel by taking the audience on an exciting family adventure on the train to Port Alfred for a seaside holiday which she masterfully builds to the return-trip disaster.
It’s a carefully researched work and Terry has done well to contextualise the Smith family’s story within a history of conquest and dispossession.
The Battle of Egazini is referenced, and the accident is set in a period of post-Frontier War peace and economic growth along the Port Alfred, Bathurst, Grahamstown axis.
The Kowie Railway Company, which in 1883 spanned the British-designed and constructed steel bridge across the gorge, billed the structure as a soaring triumph of colonial engineering but, in fact, it was rudely built above two sacred pools where Xhosa people would pay respects to ancestors.
The company’s response to the tragedy was cold and self-protective, and white society’s treatment of the Smith orphans utterly reprehensible. Despite losing their parents and money being raised for their care, the pair ended up in an orphanage.
Nonetheless, Smith emerged out of her teenage years, married, had a good family life and bore seven children. She had a peaceful death in her 60s, but was haunted throughout by her horrific experience high up on the bridge.
Ultimately, it is the church which comes under scrutiny in the play, and the theological question of immortality is raised.
Is God in the stone?
This will undoubtedly cause much discussion, especially at DSG, which is a devoutly Anglican institution.
Chris Weare’s direction is sensitive, the staging is beautifully crafted, and the sound and lighting give the work an ominous immediacy.
Saturday Dispatch spoke to Peter Terry about his research for the script.
He said: “Chris Weare, the director, spoke to me in early 2010, about turning this massive pile of documents he had into a one-woman drama. Chris and I were students together at Rhodes University in the late ’60s.
“The documents, mostly photostats – and photostats of photostats! – were a fairly loose jumble of bits and pieces, newspaper clippings and handwritten letters and family trees; a wonderful magpie collection that Chris had been given by Ben Bezuidenhout, a man who has spent a lot of time researching the Blaauwkrantz Bridge disaster. Ben has written a short book about it, and does walking tours to the bridge.
“Ben hoped Chris might turn it all into a play, and hoped the play could be presented for the centenary of the disaster in April 2011.
“Sadly, we couldn’t raise the money to do the play in 2011. My friend Marguerite Poland, the well-known Eastern Cape novelist, is the great niece of Hope Brereton, (who died in the disaster) and Marguerite has also written about it. About 99% of my research came to me via Ben.
Terry said: “Hazel died in 1966. I may have seen her around in Grahamstown when I was a young lad, as we shared a decade in Grahamstown. Our family moved to Grahamstown in 1956, but I don’t recall her from pictures I’ve seen. Her husband’s face looks familiar though.
“I had the good fortune of tracking down Hazel’s last two living children, two women in their 70s. It was great to talk to them; and they came all the way from Uitenhage to see the play, and were deeply, deeply moved.
“Lots of Hazel’s family members and descendants came as well. That was wonderful. It was a huge thrill to meet them all, and Jenna Dunster, who plays Hazel, was very touched by their enthusiastic response to her performance. One daughter said that Jenna resembled her mother quite strongly a few times, in the performance!”
Asked why did no funds raised for the orphans ever reach them, Terry said: “There’s no explanation that I’m aware of, other than the probability of skullduggery – what we refer to as corruption, these days.”
Terry said he hoped he had retold Hazel’s story with respect and affection.
“I think it’s a beautiful, if very sad, story about the Eastern Cape and its people. The names of the passengers, the name of the station master, these were all Eastern Cape families whom one knew. The granddaughter of the man who climbed the bridge to rescue Hazel was at university with me. And so on. I like to think my overlaying of the greater history of the area and the town, and the fact that the disaster was almost symbolic, a microcosm if you like, of the troubled history of the region, added food for thought. And then the whole question of God.
“I think it’s valid. I think the tragedy calls for these questions. I like to think that what I have added to the story of Hazel gives people cause to ponder greater ripples. And the responses I’ve had – from strangers as well as friends – leads me to think that I have achieved some of that. Hazel’s devastating story, its pathos, seems to get people asking how they would deal with these kinds of things.”
Asked if he would be bringing the show to East London or other venues in the Eastern Cape, Terry said: “I’d love it to travel the whole Eastern Cape. It’s such a story of the region, but money is the stumbling block. I’m encouraging Jenna to travel it to as many festivals around the country as possible.” — mikel@dispatch.co.za
Cruelty of God and stone- New Play dramatises tragic Blaauwkrantz train disaster
The play showed to full houses at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival recently.
The work recounts how a train carrying a load of quarried stone from Bathurst to Grahamstown for the construction of the Anglican cathedral of St Michael and St George, derailed. This, Terry suggests in the play, means there is blood in some of the stone in this venerated and transformed church.
But it largely is a human tale, told through the voice of seven-year-old Hazel Smith, who lost four of six family members, including her parents, when the coupling of an “unregulated” truck, one of five carrying the church’s stone and pineapples, snapped. The impact caused the truck to jump the rails, and literally leap off the bridge.
It plummeted 60m to the bottom of the gorge, which is halfway between Bathurst and Grahamstown, dragging with it four full passenger coaches and a guard van.
Without spoiling the story line, Smith, trapped high up in the struts of the bridge, had an unspeakable experience. But there were angels too that day, with climbing skills.
There was a poignant historical connection to the work when scores of Diocesan School for Girls (DSG) junior schoolgirls attended the premiere in honour of DSG pupil Hope Brereton, one of the 29 people who died.
Jenna Dunster gave a captivating performance as Hazel by taking the audience on an exciting family adventure on the train to Port Alfred for a seaside holiday which she masterfully builds to the return-trip disaster.
It’s a carefully researched work and Terry has done well to contextualise the Smith family’s story within a history of conquest and dispossession.
The Battle of Egazini is referenced, and the accident is set in a period of post-Frontier War peace and economic growth along the Port Alfred, Bathurst, Grahamstown axis.
The Kowie Railway Company, which in 1883 spanned the British-designed and constructed steel bridge across the gorge, billed the structure as a soaring triumph of colonial engineering but, in fact, it was rudely built above two sacred pools where Xhosa people would pay respects to ancestors.
The company’s response to the tragedy was cold and self-protective, and white society’s treatment of the Smith orphans utterly reprehensible. Despite losing their parents and money being raised for their care, the pair ended up in an orphanage.
Nonetheless, Smith emerged out of her teenage years, married, had a good family life and bore seven children. She had a peaceful death in her 60s, but was haunted throughout by her horrific experience high up on the bridge.
Ultimately, it is the church which comes under scrutiny in the play, and the theological question of immortality is raised.
Is God in the stone?
This will undoubtedly cause much discussion, especially at DSG, which is a devoutly Anglican institution.
Chris Weare’s direction is sensitive, the staging is beautifully crafted, and the sound and lighting give the work an ominous immediacy.
Saturday Dispatch spoke to Peter Terry about his research for the script.
He said: “Chris Weare, the director, spoke to me in early 2010, about turning this massive pile of documents he had into a one-woman drama. Chris and I were students together at Rhodes University in the late ’60s.
“The documents, mostly photostats – and photostats of photostats! – were a fairly loose jumble of bits and pieces, newspaper clippings and handwritten letters and family trees; a wonderful magpie collection that Chris had been given by Ben Bezuidenhout, a man who has spent a lot of time researching the Blaauwkrantz Bridge disaster. Ben has written a short book about it, and does walking tours to the bridge.
“Ben hoped Chris might turn it all into a play, and hoped the play could be presented for the centenary of the disaster in April 2011.
“Sadly, we couldn’t raise the money to do the play in 2011. My friend Marguerite Poland, the well-known Eastern Cape novelist, is the great niece of Hope Brereton, (who died in the disaster) and Marguerite has also written about it. About 99% of my research came to me via Ben.
Terry said: “Hazel died in 1966. I may have seen her around in Grahamstown when I was a young lad, as we shared a decade in Grahamstown. Our family moved to Grahamstown in 1956, but I don’t recall her from pictures I’ve seen. Her husband’s face looks familiar though.
“I had the good fortune of tracking down Hazel’s last two living children, two women in their 70s. It was great to talk to them; and they came all the way from Uitenhage to see the play, and were deeply, deeply moved.
“Lots of Hazel’s family members and descendants came as well. That was wonderful. It was a huge thrill to meet them all, and Jenna Dunster, who plays Hazel, was very touched by their enthusiastic response to her performance. One daughter said that Jenna resembled her mother quite strongly a few times, in the performance!”
Asked why did no funds raised for the orphans ever reach them, Terry said: “There’s no explanation that I’m aware of, other than the probability of skullduggery – what we refer to as corruption, these days.”
Terry said he hoped he had retold Hazel’s story with respect and affection.
“I think it’s a beautiful, if very sad, story about the Eastern Cape and its people. The names of the passengers, the name of the station master, these were all Eastern Cape families whom one knew. The granddaughter of the man who climbed the bridge to rescue Hazel was at university with me. And so on. I like to think my overlaying of the greater history of the area and the town, and the fact that the disaster was almost symbolic, a microcosm if you like, of the troubled history of the region, added food for thought. And then the whole question of God.
“I think it’s valid. I think the tragedy calls for these questions. I like to think that what I have added to the story of Hazel gives people cause to ponder greater ripples. And the responses I’ve had – from strangers as well as friends – leads me to think that I have achieved some of that. Hazel’s devastating story, its pathos, seems to get people asking how they would deal with these kinds of things.”
Asked if he would be bringing the show to East London or other venues in the Eastern Cape, Terry said: “I’d love it to travel the whole Eastern Cape. It’s such a story of the region, but money is the stumbling block. I’m encouraging Jenna to travel it to as many festivals around the country as possible.” — mikel@dispatch.co.za
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