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UFS Drama Department triumph: ‘Ons wag vir Godot’ sweeps kykNET Fiësta Awards

18 March 2025 | Story Litha Banjatwa | Photo Supplied

Fiesta winners 2025 — Ons wag vir Godot shines at the 2025 kykNET Fiësta Awards, winning three major accolades and cementing UFS’s reputation for world-class theatre excellence.

Ons wag vir Godot, a groundbreaking stage production from the University of the Free State (UFS) Department of Drama and Theatre Arts, was one of the biggest winners at the 2025 kykNET Fiësta Awards, which celebrate the best of Afrikaans theatre.

The awards ceremony was held at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town on 27 February 2025.

Ons wag vir Godot, an Afrikaans translation of Irish writer Samuel Beckett’s celebrated 1953 play Waiting for Godot, won three of its four nominations: Best Director for Dion van Niekerk, Best Translation for Naomi Morgan, and Best Supporting Actor for Gerben Kamper. This haul positioned Ons wag vir Godot as the second biggest winner of the evening, and marked an unprecedented achievement for a Free State production at the Fiësta Awards.

This success builds upon the play’s earlier triumphs at the Free State Arts Festival, where it received accolades for Best Director, Best Translation, Best Supporting Actor (Peter Taljaard), and Best Ensemble.

Director Dion van Niekerk said what set Ons wag vir Godot apart was its unique origin: it is the first Afrikaans translation of Beckett's masterpiece directly from the French original. Securing the translation rights was no small feat, requiring a special appeal to the notoriously selective Samuel Beckett Estate.

“The production’s greatest challenge lay in making the play accessible to a South African audience,” Van Niekerk said. “We aimed to find a stage language with visual imagery that would situate the play within a recognisable South African context."

This was achieved through Naomi Morgan’s “immaculate translation work, which captured the existential concerns of the play with precisely the right Afrikaans vocabulary and turns of phrase”. The production team further grounded the play in South African reality through the creation of characters, setting, and costuming that evoked the stark beauty of the Karoo landscape.

The success of Ons wag vir Godot has profound implications for the UFS Department of Drama and Theatre Arts. It firmly establishes the department among the nation’s leading drama institutions, showcasing its ability to contribute high-quality, meaningful work to the South African artistic landscape. “This production highlights the importance of performing translated classics,” Van Niekerk said. “Works like Waiting for Godot are part of the canon of great international theatrical works. South Africa was banned from producing this play during apartheid, and it has been rarely seen since, predominantly in English.” This production, therefore, offers Afrikaans-speaking South Africans and others a unique opportunity to engage with Beckett’s timeless work.

The impact of this success extends to the department’s students. Sibabalwe Jokani, a student cast member, shared in the nominations for Best Ensemble at both the Free State Festival and Fiësta Awards. Jokani said the play’s success has inspired the student body and reaffirmed the department’s commitment to high standards and industry access.

When asked about the future of Afrikaans theatre, Van Niekerk said, “This production will hopefully inspire others to continue to reconsider the value that great theatrical works that have been created in other languages might have in a contemporary Afrikaans context.”

News Archive

UFS in forefront with ASGI-SA initiative

2006-05-10

At the conceptualisation colloquium and stakeholder dialogue were from the left Dr Aldo Stroebel (senior researcher at the UFS Research Development Directorate), Dr Edith Vries (acting Chief Executive Officer of the Independent Development Trust) and Prof Frans Swanepoel (Director: UFS Research Development Directorate).

UFS in forefront with ASGI-SA initiative

Two staff members of the University of the Free State (UFS) have been appointed as members of the advisory board of the national programme for the creation of small enterprises and jobs in the second economy. This programme forms part of government’s Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (ASGI-SA).

Prof Frans Swanepoel, Director of the UFS Research Development Directorate and Dr Aldo Stroebel, senior researcher at the UFS Research Development Directorate, are working with a team of experts from the UFS on a draft implementation strategy for the national programme. Both Prof Swanepoel and Dr Stroebel are also associated to the UFS Centre for Sustainable Agriculture.

“The strategy is being developed in collaboration with institutions like the Independent Development Trust, the Department of Agriculture, the National Development Agency and the Department of Trade and Industry,” says Prof Swanepoel.

The other team members of the UFS are Prof Basie Wessels, Director of the Mangaung-University Community Partnership Programme (MUCPP) and Mr Benedict Mokoena, project manager at the MUCPP.

Dr Stroebel was also member of the organising committee of a conceptualisation colloquium and stakeholder dialogue that was recently presented in Johannesburg. The conference was attended by more than 400 delegates from government departments, higher-education institutions and civil society, including Dr Kobus Laubscher, member of the UFS Council.

The conference was facilitated by Ms Vuyo Mahlati, previously from the WK Kellogg Foundation’s Africa programme and opened by Ms Thoko Didiza, Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs.

“The colloquium formed the basis of an induction workshop during which a group of 150 individuals (50 teams of three) from all nine provinces, identified to initiate the implementation of the national programme, was trained and orientated towards an induction manual in collaboration with Hand-in-Hand, an Indian counterpart,” says Prof Swanepoel.

Dr Stroebel and Mr Benedict Mokoena formed part of the team to conceptualise and finalise this training manual. The induction training includes a case study of a successful community self-help partnership model, namely the MUCPP at the UFS. Prof Wessels and Mr Mokoena are both playing a leading role in the further development of subsequent training initiatives throughout South Africa, in partnership with the relevant provincial departments.

“The involvement of the UFS in the programme is a compliment to us. It reflects the value government sees in the use of academics and experts in the management of the ASGI-SA initiative. It is also an indication of one of the aims of the UFS to play a role in South Africa and Africa and in the transformation and change that is taking place in our country,” says Prof Swanepoel.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
10 May 2006

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