Hans Bars de Bioborrel

Artist’s Statement: D J Wilson, LRPS

Hans Bars die Bioborrel -Kalfiefees 2025

Here, in a tour-de-force of physical and vocal dexterity, Tiaan Slabbert transformed the Kalfiefees stage into the imagined corridors of “Huis Madeliefie,” a retirement home thrown into lockdown turmoil. With no elaborate props or costume changes to rely upon, Slabbert inhabited thirteen distinct characters using little more than breath, gesture and precision timing. The result was theatre stripped to its essence: performance as pure transformation.

Based on Rudie van Rensburg’s novel, Hans Bars die Bioborrel balances biting satire with unexpected tenderness. Slabbert shifts seamlessly between comic caricature and aching vulnerability, drawing laughter one moment and reflective silence the next. The phrase “bars die bioborrel” — to burst the lockdown bubble — becomes both rebellion and metaphor, a humorous call to rupture isolation while exposing the strange, resilient humanity within it.

Minimalist staging and deft lighting ensured the focus never strayed from the actor’s craft. What emerged was more than comedy; it was a meditation on ageing, confinement and the small absurdities that sustain us in times of restriction. In capturing this production, I sought not simply to document a performance, but to hold that flicker of theatrical alchemy — where one body becomes many lives beneath a single light.