First-Person: Alison Darcy on Hyena Subpoena

Cat Kidd and Geoff Agombar in South Africa

The Smiling White Mice
Going to Africa to find a way home
by Alison Darcy


It was such a strange thing to see Cat and Geoff in SA.

They had recently been described by a storyteller/teacher to her elementary students in a small township near the bush as two smiling white mice with sunburns.

And there they were, smiling at me, on the second floor balcony of a bar on Long Street in Cape Town. I had always liked these two.

I suddenly found myself becoming acutely self-conscious of my own foreigner identity.


Cat was an intriguing and sweet, friendly face in many crowds; we happily had lots of social group cross over throughout the years. And Geoff was a fun, smart and smiling bear.  But I didn’t really know either of them yet. 

Alison Darcy and Andile Nebulane in South Africa

I was there with Andile Nebulane, a talented Xhosa actor/director, and long time buddy and colleague of mine. Getting this rare chance to watch him interact with Canadians other than myself was fascinating. I suddenly found myself becoming acutely self-conscious of my own foreigner identity. I wondered what he would make of my friends, and somehow that came to represent what all South Africans must make of me.

Would they seem like fish out of water, unknowing and strange? Would their accents sound loudly American? Will their almost translucently pale skin bounce light in the twilight? Will they look wealthy or traveler shabby? Will they have the pointed energy of the north all over them? 

...to be at home there, I had to stop looking for my place and create my own space.


What I saw, to my obvious relief, was a natural and easy meeting of lovely mutual friends, and in almost an instant all the wonderings I had came to a halt. We all just enjoyed the beer and the breeze.

I remembered in that moment that those questions and insecurities I had about what place my father’s homeland has in my life are mine alone, and that to really allow myself to be at home there, I had to stop looking for my place and create my own space.

In the end, it was ridiculous fun watching my worlds collide; I invited them to the cast party for the show I had co-directed there, called Ijumpile Lendaba written by Thami Mbongo. It was a trilingual play (isiXhosa, Afrikaans and English) about the corrupt prison system and the mob rule within. The party was electric and in the middle were my sunburned rodent friends, having a blast and elevating the fun factor for all by three fold.

They were in the country because Cat had been invited by a most revered South African poet Antjie Krog (Country of my skull) to perform at a poet festival in Cape Town, and so they decided to spend time in the Kruger National Park as well, in order to film African animals for this new project she was creating.

Cat and Geoff have invited me into their lives and she into her inner artistic workings and I am honoured.


I was excited by the thought of her brilliant words pouring all over one of my favourite places and so the thrill I felt when she later asked me to direct her completed project - Hyena Subpoena - was palpable. And now, Cat and Geoff have invited me into their lives and she into her inner artistic workings and I am honoured. 

As I write this, we are on the precipice of moving into the playing space - L’Espace Jean-Brillant - which is often one of the most exciting parts of the process. Everything will come together; the footage they shot in the park, her beautiful text, the spacing and ideas we formed together, the environments that longtime CatKidd Productions collaborators Jody Burkholder and Jack Murda are creating which will bring the space to life.

...like sculptors, all we had to do was carve away the detritus to get to this point.


I must admit, I feel strangely prepared to open the show. Usually at this point, two weeks before opening, I am having horrific director nightmares about showing up for the preview and finding the whole show has been changed around…but this time something is different.  

It’s as if this collaboration between the Scapegoats and the Kidd gang was created that day 3 years ago, on that balcony on Long Street, and like sculptors, all we had to do was carve away the detritus to get to this point.  This point where we are creating our own little piece of South Africa, and our own space, in a warehouse in Montreal.

Of course Cat’s the one who actually wrote it over these past few years, got the funding and will perform this one woman show eleven times. I just have to sit back and take all the credit. 

For more information go to Cat Kidd's website

or

Scapegoat Carnivale's website