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“The man is a master storyteller, completely transforming into a new character with quick, simple costume changes”

- Uptown Magazine

Erik de Waal is a critically acclaimed dramatic artist both at home and abroad. “Sensual and evocative" and "epic and intimate" are just some of the accolades awarded him by critics in South Africa and Canada . This multi-talented actor, storyteller, writer and singer is best known for blending the myriad cultures of South Africa to create intense, memorable theatrical experiences. In Canada, de Waal's productions have been ranked among the top shows at international fringe theatre festivals.

De Waal holds an Honours degree in drama from the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa ). His stage work encompasses the classical and modern theatre canons. De Waal is also a respected cabaret artist as well as a talented director of solo works and has worked with, amongst others, the French singer Daniéle Pascal on three productions.

Since 1999 de Waal has also taken his productions to Canadian audiences. Angel toured the Fringe circuit before returning to a sold-out run at the prestigious Baxter Theatre Centre in Cape Town. His subsequent productions UBULOLO or the witch, THANDWENI where the ghosts scream and Blue is the Water were all listed as top ten shows at the Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Vancouver and Montreal Fringe Festivals. The Erotic Memoirs of St. Gilles marked a departure for de Waal, as he explored the psyche and life of Gilles de Rais, one of history's greatest heroes and villains. With Canterbury Tales, de Waal returns to familiar dramatic turf - his native South Africa. This time, instead of delving into the sometimes melancholic side of the South African mythos, de Waal celebrates the fortitude, humour and wit evinced by many of his compatriots regardless of race, social and economic class.

De Waal is also an award winning, respected practitioner of children's theatre in South Africa. His company, YAP Theatre Productions, tours South Africa with educational entertainment for school children. The tours include the townships, rural areas and cities. He has developed more than forty productions that incorporate physical comedy, puppetry, masks and audience participation. De Waal has performed his theatre pieces for young audiences in South Africa, Canada, England, Ireland, Argentina, Mexico and Turkey. He also recorded a CD of traditional South African stories called Iqhawe and the lion and other magical tales from the calabash in 2001. In 2006 he directed Janice Honeyman's WAM: a Mozart musical and wrote and directed Bongi, Banna & Merrim Aikona - the first tri-lingual (English, Xhosa and Afrikaans) South African children's play - for the Klein Libertas Theatre in South Africa.

In South Africa, Erik de Waal also works as a cabaret performer. His cabaret Stoutgat Stories & Sad Songs has toured the country since 2001 and has been sold out for three consecutive years at the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees in Oudtshoorn and additional performances had to be scheduled to meet public demand.

In September 2006 de Waal played the Concert Hall in The Baxter Theatre Centre with Tales from the Calabash as one of the headlining acts of the OUT THE BOX: Festival of Puppets, Mask and Visual Performance. In October and November 2006, de Waal toured Blue is the Water and Tales from the Calabash through Argentina and Mexico, culminating in performances for the South African Embassy, the British Council, the Universidad de las Americas and the Anglo-Mexican Foundation in Mexico City .

edewaal@mweb.co.za

Marie Kruger (D.Phil.) has lectured at the University of Stellenbosch Drama Department since 1981. Apart from publishing an authoritative volume on puppetry and being a popular speaker at international theatre conferences, she has also contributed numerous articles to the South African Theatre Journal, as well as two chapters on theatre for young audiences and puppet and mask theatre in South Africa to The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre. Since 1986 she acted as moderator of Speech and Drama for the Western Cape Department of Education. She has become renowned as director, compiler and developer of more than 50 puppet, adult and children's theatre productions. Her recent credits include Neelsie al gesêlsend, So is ek gebek III and IV and Speels gesê which played to sold-out houses at the Klein Karoo and Aardklop Arts Festivals. In 2000 she directed Deborah de Waal en die Baba-blues which was nominated for the prestigeous FNB Vita-award for Best theatre production. Canterbury Tales marks the 8th collaboration between Erik de Waal and Marie Kruger.

THE EDMONTON JOURNAL
20 August 20 2006
Reviewed by Roger Levesque
4 STARS (out of 5)

Rich fun with Chaucer

Some of you will already be familiar with South Africa 's Erik de Waal and his celebrated gift for storytelling from previous Fringes. For those who aren't, suffice to say he has a commanding presence, carefully paced delivery, clever wit, and the literary expertise to back it up. Of course, there's great source material too in this latest interpretive venture that takes Chaucer's classic down to the townships for "the thrill of living with the poorest of the poor for one hour," but most of the language in the show belongs to the presenter.
In the prologue, de Waal underlines this is not the National Geographic Africa we're all expecting, before he outlines the audience's opportunities for verbal participation. Then he launches into six tales, sometimes using hand puppets, or propping up near-life-size marionettes, sometimes on his own with the spotlight focused on his animated features.
My favourite part came in The Pardoner's Tale , as told by Morte -- Death himself, with a French name and skeletal underpinnings to match. Quite the captivating character, he calls himself "a repo man" before leaving us to ponder: "Life sucks but here's to life."
De Waal is careful to retain the earthy quality of Chaucer too, even as he updates it with a few contemporary colloquialisms. There's The Wife of Bath's Tale for instance, from a woman/puppet married five times who insists you have to "fornicate them into submission." Alas, her husbands kept dying from eating the wrong kind of mushrooms. And there are some witty asides too, like the Lord being "too busy" with George Bush.

Rich fun.

EDMONTON SUN
19 August 2006-09-04
Reviewed by Colin Maclean
4 STARS (out of 5)

Transplanted Chaucer works in translation

Erik de Waal is a formidable storyteller who has brought his atmospheric South African folk tales to the Fringe for a number of years now.
This time out he attempts something different. Observing that no one can understand the bawdy 700-year-old yarns of Geoffrey Chaucer anymore, he suggests a translation. So he remounts some of the Canterbury Tales in a South African setting. And darned if these essentially English stories don't take on a distinct African flavour. They don't all work, but enough do to make de Waal's presentation eminently listenable.
Apparently, it has become fashionable in South Africa to visit the poverty-stricken squatter camps. Busloads of "interested parties'' arrive looking for a National Geographic view of the natives, "preferably women stripped to the waist.'' The locals are told how to react - even to the extent of singing because "they love poor people to sing.''
As the buses arrive at the Canterbury squatter's camp, de Waal instructs us, "On the count of three, look poor.'' He then transmutes Chaucer's rambunctious and ribald stories as, I gather, they might have been told around an African campfire. Husbands are cuckolded, a blind old man is led to believe his wife's gyrations in a tree come about while picking an apple when she really doing a Desperate Housewives with (male) help. (Apparently, size really did count in times medieval.)
"A sin,'' observes de Waal helpfully, "is only a sin if it's seen.'' There are ardent swains, steamy women and even an Arthurian knight makes an appearance.
De Waal ends with a wonderful story about the nobility of true love and then returns to his "poverty as entertainment'' beginning. I found this part of the show more interesting and revealing than some of Chaucer's rather dated raunch and the fit, although interesting and provocative, was sometimes laboured.
But with his ability to people the stage with colourful characters, his natural storyteller's ability and his liquid, gently accented voice, the colourful hour passes quickly and entertainingly.

(Based on performance at the Saskatoon Fringe)

PLANET S MAGAZINE ( Saskatoon )
3 August 2006
Reviewed by Peter Vesuwalla
5 STARS (out of 5)

Erik de Waal could read the phone book and keep an audience spellbound. The man is a master storyteller, completely transforming into a new character with quick, simple costume changes. Who better, then, to tackle Chaucer's work, transporting the stories, and the audience, to South Africa ? It only takes a minute before he declares the middle English text unintelligible and then adopts his own vernacular with all the charm of African lingo and Chaucer's love of double entendre. Some of the tales become modern, some remain old, and de Waal brilliantly balances out the comic and the tragic. If you've never read Canterbury Tales, de Waal's adaptation is still accessible, and for those of us who have, he makes the stories fresh and exciting. I could listen to this guy all day.

(Based on performance at the Winnipeg Fringe)

THE STAR PHOENIX ( Saskatoon )
6 August 2006
Reviewed by Joanne Paulson
4 ½ STARS (out of 5)

Erik de Waal swirls onto the stage in a black-and-white striped robe, trimmed with red. He is our fantastical tour director at Canterbury , which will soon reveal its tales. In this case, Canterbury is not Chaucer's town, but a poverty-stricken squatters' camp near Cape Town , South Africa . It is, just the same, a place for pilgrimages — for tourists, and for those who have taken up poverty as a cause. To sanitize things just a bit, the government has installed flush toilets. After all, “nobody wants poo on their Prada.”
These Canterbury Tales are based on Chaucer's rambunctious satires, but re-positioned to South Africa . De Waal tells these tales with puppetry, costumery, masks and magnificent gestures.
Some stories are funny; others very sad; at least one eloquently celebrates the nobility that can be found in the human spirit. A death's head called Mort helps us laugh at mortality.
South Africa 's struggles lead to tragic endings. As he travels from tale to tale, de Waal changes mood like most people change socks. He creates a big, powerful presence, and a mystical, sometimes archetypal tour of the human condition. De Waal's show is unique, sometimes bizarre and entirely engrossing.

UPTOWN MAGAZINE ( Winnipeg )
3 August 2006
Reviewed by Peter Vesuwalla
5 STARS (out of 5)

Erik de Waal could read the phone book and keep an audience spellbound. The man is a master storyteller, completely transforming into a new character with quick, simple costume changes. Who better, then, to tackle Chaucer's work, transporting the stories, and the audience, to South Africa ? It only takes a minute before he declares the middle English text unintelligible and then adopts his own vernacular with all the charm of African lingo and Chaucer's love of double entendre. Some of the tales become modern, some remain old, and de Waal brilliantly balances out the comic and the tragic. If you've never read Canterbury Tales, de Waal's adaptation is still accessible, and for those of us who have, he makes the stories fresh and exciting. I could listen to this guy all day.

UMFM (Winnipeg)
Reviewed by Cindy Murdoch
4½ STARS (out of 5)

This modern adaptation of Geoffrey Chaucer's medieval story does retain some of the original verse; however, it is blended with more modern verse and South African mythology, to tell the story in an interesting and fresh way. Erik de Waal gives a riveting performance as the storyteller in this one-man show. The audience is pulled into the stories and even becomes a participant in the show. With the use of many well designed props and costumes, de Waal transitions from character to character without missing a beat. This show would be enjoyable even for those who aren't familiar with Chaucer's work, and I highly recommend seeing it.

WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
20 July 2006
Reviewed by Demetra Hajidiacos
4 STARS (out of 5)

The program graphic and write-up for this imported one-man show might imply titillating storytelling nipped from Chaucer's most famous works, but this 60-minute performance from South Africa 's Erik de Waal is more a wholesome family affair with a sprinkling of naughtiness.
Be prepared to be dressed up, mocked and feel like a member of a Zulu-as-a-second-language class as de Waal encourages audience participation. He transforms Canterbury into a common squatter camp where busloads of tourists arrive daily to enthusiastically worship the shrine of poverty.
While the play starts out with a bang, de Waal's sharp storytelling is undermined by some of his less-developed characters. Some very engaging mask work and puppetry, including his operation of a life sized puppet named Zuma, save the day. No need to brush up on your Chaucer; de Waal does all the work.