Review: THE UNLIKELY SECRET AGENT at Drama Factory

Most people who hear the name Kasrils think of Ronnie. THE UNLIKELY SECRET AGENT, however, is about Eleanor. It's a story that deserves wider telling, and one I was entirely unaware of before walking in.

Written and directed by Paul du Toit, THE UNLIKELY SECRET AGENT has been running for five years at various venues across the country. Erika Breytenbach has been the constant across every iteration. The other four actors in this production are du Toit, Ashley Dowds, Carlo Daniels, and Ntlanhla Kutu.

The show is a docudrama that tells the story of Eleanor Anderson (later Kasrils), who was part of the underground anti-apartheid movement in the 1960s. The narrative follows her from her first encounter with Ronnie Kasrils through her clandestine activism, her arrest and imprisonment at Durban Central Prison, her transfer to Fort Napier Psychiatric Hospital, her escape, and her eventual reunion with Ronnie.

The production moves through short scenes with remarkable fluency, blending talking-head narration, physical clowning, conventional storytelling, and cinematic projection in a way that calls to mind a newsreel. The segues are clever and unpredictable. The set is simple and generic and deftly used so that the same configuration serves multiple settings. Unobtrusive and purposeful projections are used to further situate the action where necessary.

The storytelling is broadly chronological but never straightforwardly linear. Lines from elsewhere in the play are dropped in from the sidelines, out of context, as echoes and foreshadowings. This trick keeps the audience aware of where the story has been and where it's headed, without tipping its hand too early.

Breytenbach carries Eleanor with complete authority, and the men around her are sharp in their characterisations across multiple roles. The physical theatre work throughout is impressive. All five performances are consistently satisfying and delightful to watch.

What struck me most was a structural choice the production makes without calling attention to itself. This is a story about race, obviously, but not once does it acknowledge or concern itself with the race of the actors playing the parts. In a cast of five, of mixed race, nobody is cast to type and nobody signals it. The effect is quietly profound: a theatrical argument that the entire cruel apparatus of apartheid was fundamentally absurd.

Du Toit calls this his love letter to protest theatre, and it shows. It's also an important piece of historical recovery that brings to light a woman who was indispensable to the movement and who has gone largely unacknowledged. That it's managed 69 performances is not surprising but this is a limited run, and likely the last in Cape Town, so do be sure to catch it before it ends.

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