Remembering Yvonne with Love
Mark's Tribute at the Memorial Service
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When I was a UCT-registered MA student in the late-1980s, living and working in Johannesburg, I was introduced to a very different Yvonne who was also working on her MA at the time, by Ian Steadman and we spent many hours together in her office at Wits struggling over the intricacies of South African Theatre research.
It was Yvonne who invited me back to teach at UCT in the mid-1990s when I returned to Cape Town and we have been colleagues for the past fifteen years at UCT and at Magnet where she served as a trustee.
Yvonne could be difficult. She was fierce and feisty and argumentative and she could be downright impossible to deal with at times. She always carried a huge load and was never willing to let go even when I tried to shift responsibility away from her to ease her load. But to me she was a friend, an advisor and a loyal supporter and the realization that she will not be there any longer is painful and difficult and will leave a huge hole in our department.
Yesterday at the Little Theatre students streamed onto the stage to pay tribute to Yvonne expressing in a variety of ways and with a great deal of warmth and joy their memories of Yvonne. It was a moving display of just what she meant to countless students past and present. Jodi and Sarah will speak on behalf of those students here today but for me two things stood out in their many tributes: Yvonne the consummate teacher and Yvonne always available, always ready to help.
Yvonne was first and foremost a teacher and her commitment was to students and to learning. When the university established a Centre for Higher Education Development and through it offered courses for lecturers, Yvonne was one of the first to enroll (and to pass with distinction), not because she needed help as a teacher but because she was constantly seeking to innovate, to improve the ways in which she sought to engage students in learning. If Yvonne had a motto it would have been something like: It’s about the students, dummy!
Yvonne was always available to students, willing to work long hours, always paying attention and taking care. There was hardly a production or a project or an exam that she did not support even in the last few years when her health was failing. But she was also available to many other organizations who were privileged to benefit from her advice, guidance and support. Magnet Theatre was one of those organizations. Over twenty two years Yvonne saw every single one of our productions, many of them multiple times. She drove out to Clanwilliam in her little blue car (the one before the little green car) to participate in the lantern parade, sometimes driving back late at night because she insisted on being there. She attended showcases in Khayelitsha, attended meetings at odd times, was always willing to come out to help when a cheque needed signing or something needed to be collected. Right up to the last she was volunteering to interview people for an administrative post and then apologizing profusely for being in hospital when the interviews took place. When I called her in the hospital to find out how she was doing she only wanted to talk about the candidates for the job.
For Jennie, Mandla and I and all the rest of the Magnet family, it feels that we have lost a really good parent. So Yvonne, wherever you are, thank you for being such an extraordinary and consistent witness to our journey as a company; thank you for believing in everything we did; thank you for your guidance and encouragement; thank you for your generosity, for your time, for your energy and insight. We will always strive to do things right.
Yesterday as I was getting ready for work, mulling over what I could say about Yvonne, I saw my son Zac doing what teenagers are wont to do these days. He was standing in front of the television, playstation control in hand and i-pod earphones in his ears, listening to music. Suddenly he sang out a few words of the song he was listening to, probably louder than he realized. And this is what he sang:
Oobladi, ooblada, life goes on!
Which I thought was a good way for me to end today.
