Most white South Africans are oblivious to the enormous hurdles and daily dangers faced in simply trying to make ends meet if you’re a black taxi driver. Cushioned with credit and the systemic privileges inherited from racial capitalism, many whites remain alienated from the lower classes overwhelmingly constituted by people formerly classified under apartheid as non-white. These seemingly intractable divisions the boyish Matthew Ribnick, whose break-through came with The Chilli Boy, relishes and exploits with humour in Hoot.
Ribnick seamlessly takes on about twenty keenly observed characters of different races, usually signalled with various woolly hats, to tell the story of one Harold Potgieter, whose rather disappointingly stereotyped ‘bitch-wife’ – later countered with some male-bonding – takes what the bank doesn’t repossess when his business fails. Now destitute and alone (he has no friends), he ends up boarding in a subdivided flat run by an Indian family. His adventures with the other classes begin. He joins a commuter taxi operation.
Shows like Hoot are exercises in the humour of recognisability. They may border unavoidably on stereotypes, though the fact that his characters are types seldom portrayed on our stages, keeps it fresh. What makes Hoot special is that it feels authentic. Employing snippets in African languages, Ribnick’s observations go beyond the impressions usually filtered through our rigidly stratified society by social osmosis. He has clearly spent much time hanging out with his subjects.
Both Chilli Boy and Hoot were written with Ribnick’s wife Geraldine Naidoo, who also directs his performance. Hoot is funny, broadly appealing and – as the enthusiastic response he has received shows – leads the charge in the daunting work that needs to be done to forge our fledgling democracy.
