Loneliness is found as a motif with every character in their own way. Annatjie is lonely in the city, struggling to make new friends, and the people she does meet, she finds very strange, almost impossible to relate to. She is too different from the city dwellers:
Annatjie: … ‘Hallo! Ek is Annatjie, van Amper,’ en ek kan aan die mense se gesigte sien hulle kan die plaas aan my ruik. Ek het nie geweet wat ʼn flat white is nie. En ek het honestly gedink vintage beteken fucked. Al die meisies dra seunsklere en … andersom. En ek het seriously geen clue hoe oud enige van die mans is nie, want almal het baarde (Scheepers et al. 2015: 3).
This description of Cape Town life has a duality in its humour. For one, Capetonians would be able to relate to this strange culture of gourmet coffees and bearded men, which might seem like the norm to them. This commentary of it from an outsider will give them a sense of recognition in which they would be able to find humour. Also through Annatjie’s ignorance they will feel superior to her small town observations and find the humour in it. On the other hand it is important to consider the rural settings of most of the Afrikaans festivals. A lot of the audience members might share Annatjie’s ideas about the intimidation of city life, underscoring Styan’s point of the dark comedy hiding within the prevailing common opinions of the audience. All of these aspects isolate an already lonely character even further away from her surroundings. That is, until she meets Maretha. She relates to Maretha in a way that seems to emphasise her loneliness even more; Maretha can do all the things that Annatjie wishes she could do: she is a marine biologist and open
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about her sexuality. Annatjie thinks this is a sign of their compatibility, but she is also living vicariously through Maretha. When Maretha suddenly dies, Annatjie no longer feels that she is a lesbian; she was just in love with this one person, at a certain time in her life. This underscores Annatjie’s identity crisis.
Bea ran away from Amper at a young age and has been with Louis, a married man who refuses to leave his wife, for twenty years. Her unwillingness to see her own reality makes her foolish in the eyes of the audience. Within the liberated subconscious of the festival context, her sad existence is starkly profiled. When Bea first describes Louis, he is merely an outline. She describes his sleeve, his suit and his jawline, yet never goes into the nature of the man himself. The first thing Louis says to Bea after meeting her outside of the Spur in Amper is: “Jong bokkies moenie alleen in die veld rondloop nie” (Scheepers et al. 2015: 9). This imagery of hunting is unsettling and puts Bea in the position of a lone victim, caught out. It is now twenty years later and Bea is still wandering through life alone. Of course, from her own perspective, she is not alone; she is taken care of, she is loved, but not in any real way. She cannot start a family, she cannot move out as she has no job and has been taken care of by Louis all her adult life.
Liz was able to start a family, three in fact, and yet it seems that there is still no real companionship in her life. As stated earlier, her eldest daughter has no interest in their relationship, the twins she had with her second husband are going through the awkward phase of puberty, and the last two children are still too young and high maintenance for her to find companionship with them. It seems that of all the characters, Liz is the one who is surrounded by the most people. She is constantly either at a busy family dinner, or a karate class or a rugby match. Liz’s latest husband, Phillip, is underwhelming to say the
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least, and ironically the only one of her three husbands to have gained the approval of her mother:
Liz: En nou’s ek by Phillip. Phillip. Hy’s boring, maar hy’s … boring. My ma is natuurlik mal oor hom. Dit was die eerste een van my troues waar sy van blydskap gehuil het. Boekhouer. Geld, maar niks anders nie. Hy aanvaar dat ek die septer swaai in onse ou kasteeltjie, en hy meng nie in met my ander kinders nie. Drukkies vir my en sy kinders kom in die vorm van note, vars uit die OTM (Scheepers et al. 2015: 11).
Liz finds her husband boring, yet it is the first husband her mother approves of. In this lies the ironic comedy of family politics. In her comment about this being the first wedding where her mother actually cried of happiness, we find humour in this incongruous image of a mother crying out of despair at her own daughter’s wedding. There is further irony in the fact that when she finally gained the approval of her mother’s blessing, she finds herself bored and unhappy in marriage. Liz and her husband have no real relationship to speak of and it seems that she is very lonely in her suburban life, not aware of the fact that her older sister lives just a few kilometres away. As in N is vir Neurose, Liz’s monologues reveal her preoccupation with a consumerist lifestyle. She talks openly about the fact that her husband is only good for his money. She creates a relationship with him that works on the basis of financial transactions. Her description of herself as the one who swings the sceptre in their little castle suggests that she exercises control in their marriage. However, this is an overestimation of her agency and in this also conforms to the foolishness Zamir identifies in comedic characters. This foolishness stands in the way of her happiness and in a more direct sense, her admission of loneliness.
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With the discovery of their mother’s corpse, it seems that all three sisters become aware of their own solitude. At the funeral they are being watched, seen, by the community of Amper. This makes them uncomfortable in their own way:
Bea: Almal kyk vir ons … Almal kyk vir ons.
Liz: Almal kyk vir jou, want jy dra ʼn roofdier.
Annatjie: Mense kyk, want Mamma is alleen dood (Scheepers et al. 2015: 36).
At the funeral they find themselves being scrutinised by the mourners, as well as the audience. In her own way, each daughter blames herself for their mother’s final loneliness. Annatjie with her fight about her sexual orientation, Liz for being too busy with her own life to call, and Bea for abandoning her mother in Amper years ago. Dying alone is undignified, according to them. Liz says that only homeless people die alone, not a mother of three. Their mourning seems to be incompatible with comedy, yet as Zamir notes, comic characters that are grieving will soon find comfort. It is within this found comfort that we also see another characteristic of the comedy – a note of continuity. Through all the loneliness and despair found throughout the play, we see the sisters reunited and their relationships restored. The balance found in this continuity is crucial to the reception of the dark comedy.