“Frank Opperman is one of those rare animals, a South African artist who’s making a good living from what he’s doing. “I’m on the road a lot, though,” he says, pointing out that he has a one-year-old daughter at home. “I did 150 shows of Die Uwe Pottie Potgieter recently.” Opperman’s current project is the follow-up to Die Uwe…, called Wyk 14, which he’s taken to the Klein Karoo Nationale Kunstefees (KKNK) this week. “Die Uwe… was basically about an unemployed white man apologising for shooting people on the border,” he says. “But you can only have so much of that sort of thing, and it’s out of my system. “Now Pottie – still unemployed – has decided to run for office as the councillor for Ward 14, or Wyk 14. Part of it deals with him coming to terms with being an African.” Opperman’s character makes allusions to the fact that science suggests we all originally came from around these parts, so we are all Africans – some of us just went away and came back. The original play was the biggest seller at the last KKNK and Aardklop festivals, and Opperman – as evidenced by his edginess in our interview (he was on his way to rehearsals) – is aware of the pressure to live up to that standard. That pressure has been added to by the announcement of a 13-episode TV spin-off from the play, which Opperman and writer Dana Snyman will be working on once the festival rush is over.”
